Barnabas patted Nathan on the shoulder. "Now, now, don't take on so," he muttered huskily. "Cheer up, young comrade! Your father ain't going to die--his country and General Washington need him too badly. He's been through too much this winter to be taken off by a British bullet. Mark my words, lad, he'll be on his feet again before the spring campaign opens." "I hope and pray that he will," said Nathan, cheered by the old man's confident words. "That's the way to talk," exclaimed Barnabas. "Listen, now, an' I'll tell you what the captain an' the rest of us have been through since we went into camp here. I reckon you ain't heard all." "I never heard as much as I wanted to," replied Nathan; "I didn't get the chance. But I know it was awful." "Awful ain't half the truth," declared Barnabas, with strong emphasis. "There's been wars and wars in this world, but I don't believe any army ever suffered like ours did the last few weeks. It's bad enough now, but it's not what it was. I tell you, lad, we've got to win if there's a Providence up yonder--and I know there is." Barnabas was silent for a moment, and then he resumed. "It was the 11th of last December when we started for here from Whitmarsh, lad, and the march took us four days. Half of us were without shoes, and there was a steady trail of frozen blood along the way. And when we got here things looked as blue as could be. The place was a lonely wilderness--mostly trees and water and hills. But Washington and his officers declared it was a strong position, an' I reckon they were right." "What did you do first?" asked Nathan. "Built redoubts and dug entrenchments," replied Barnabas, "an' then we commenced on the huts. What a time we had of it in the bitter weather and snow, felling and hauling the trees and putting the logs together! And it took purty near as long to stuff the cracks with clay, and cover the window openings with oiled paper. Why, it was the first of the year till we got into the huts." "I don't see how you lived through the exposure, all the time you were working and sleeping without shelter," said Nathan. "I hardly see myself, lad, looking back on it now," declared Barnabas. "It were little short of a miracle. We were without proper food and clothing, to say nothing of shelter. Flour and water, baked at open fires, was mostly all we had to eat, and we were without bread for days at a time. You see, supplies were scarce in the surrounding country, owin' to the military operations of last summer. Lots of us had no shirts, and the hospitals were full of barefooted soldiers who couldn't work for want of shoes." "And where did you sleep at nights?" inquired Nathan.