"This _is_ an old fellow. His crown has been twisted off by some hurricane. There are lightning marks upon him. He feels his age. The storm makes him shiver." And Mr. Holman placed an uneasy foot upon the quaking roots. "It's a big tree for such a little hill," was Doby's comment. "I never did see so many funny little hills as are in this valley. Wasn't it lucky there happened to be one over where the Muskingum River comes into the Ohio? It is at the very best spot for Parson Cutler's settlers to build their stockade." Mr. Holman shook his head as they looked from their own small oak-capped hill to the big one on which stood the fort defying the lightning and wind of the storm quite as boldly as it had often done the burning arrows and the wild rushes of Indian foes. "That knoll did not _happen_ to be at the point of vantage," he said. "It was built on purpose ages ago as a fort of earthwork to defend this valley." "Who did it?" asked Doby. "I don't know. The folks who threw up that earthwork and the one over there--and there--and there," and his father pointed out through the broken curtain of the rain and sleet to a long rampart of earth, then to another circle of low-lying, grass-grown walls, and afterward to several small knobs, some with trees, some without. "The race who did it could not have been white people, for they were all dead and gone centuries before white men came to this continent." "Maybe they were Indians," ventured Doby. "Not like any Indians we know. For Indians roam over the country and live by hunting and fishing. Indians never get to be as numerous as these builders of mounds must have been. Only a great nation, somewhat civilized, could put up the immense defenses they did. Each Indian needs more acres than you can imagine to live on--" "Savages don't work together. They quarrel and kill one another and keep their numbers small," interrupted Doby. "There may not be as many Indians in the State of Ohio now as there are white people in the town of Pittsburg where we started our boat down the river," his father continued. Doby considered. "Wigwams and canoes are all that Indians build. These people raised regular forts. Look at that plain! Even a storm like this can't break those heavy banks. See the hail slide down them! It must have taken lots of men with muscle to pile such heaps of dirt." Doby spoke as one who knew what spading meant. "Back from the river wherever settlers go they find these strange earthworks in the valleys; huge masses for forts, fancy curves for altars, and small piles for tombs. Walls surround what must have been good-sized hamlets." As his father raised his voice to be heard against the swish of the sleet Doby stared out over the plain with round eyes. "Those walls where the trees are swaying so are as high as Cutler's stockade. There is some timber-work, but no masonry in any of them. They inclose half a hundred acres."