The house that we ran up so quickly was 40 feet long by 18 feet wide. This gave us each a bed-sitting-room 15 feet by 18 feet, a store-room 10 feet by 12 feet, and a six-foot passage communicating between the two principal rooms, and into this passage the front doors opened. In the front of the house we built a large open porch 14 feet by 14 feet, which served the purpose of dining, drawing and reception-room. Thus we had a large airy house, rain, wind, and sun-tight, which undoubtedly greatly conduced to health and comfort during the building of more permanent dwellings in anticipation of the coming of our wives. At that time the natives never moved many yards from their houses without three or four spears in their hands, ugly knives in their sheaths, and shields on their arms. Armed in this manner they would frequently congregate on the bank, and, shading their eyes with their hands, they would look earnestly down the river; and then coming to us they would say, “White men, the people in the lower towns are coming up to fight you; get out your guns ready and we will help you.” Looking down the river we could see in the distance many canoes darting about, but as we had given the natives of those towns no reason for attacking us, and as we were the guests of another town we knew they would not assail us without collusion with our neighbours; and as our neighbours had every opportunity of easily killing two unarmed men if they desired so to do without calling in outsiders to share the loot, we thought that the staring down-river, their statements regarding the evil designs of the lower towns, and their offers of help were simply attempts to fleece us of barter goods in payment for their proffered aid; so we used to get out our binoculars, look down-river, and making some laughing remark, go on with our work. This laughter and brave show were more often forced than not, for we were at times puzzled by the apparent earnestness of our neighbours, and their repeated assurances that they would help us if we would only bring out our guns and properly prepare to support them when the attack was made. As a matter of fact, we had only one gun between us, and that was in pieces at the bottom of one of my trunks. We had no cartridges, and although we had cartridge cases, shots, balls, caps, and outfit for making cartridges, yet we had not a grain of gunpowder; but all this we kept to ourselves and refused to make preparations until we were certain the enemy really intended to attack us.