Shortly after the repulse of Proctor, Fernando, who had taken a place in another company, was sent to Fort Stephenson, then commanded by Major George Croghan, a regular army officer only twenty-one years of age. Proctor's dusky allies marched across the country to assist the British in the siege of the fort; and when, on the afternoon of the 31st, the British transports and gunboats appeared at a turn in the river a mile from the fort, the woods were swarming with Indians. [Illustration: JAMES MADISON.] Within the fort, all were calm, pale, yet determined. Only one hundred and sixty men were there to oppose the hosts of Proctor and Tecumseh. Proctor sent a demand to the fort for surrender, accompanied by the usual threat of massacre by the Indians in case of refusal. To his surprise, Major Croghan sent a defiant refusal. A cannonade from the gunboats and howitzers which the British had landed commenced. All night long the great guns played upon the fort without any serious effect, occasionally answered by the solitary six-pound cannon of the garrison, which was rapidly shifted from one block house to another, to give the impression that the fort was armed with several guns. During the night, the British dragged three six-pound cannon to a point higher than the fort to open on it in the morning. It was a trying night for Fernando. All night long, the incessant thunder of cannon shook the air, and the great balls, striking the sides of the earthworks, or bursting over their heads, presented a scene grand but awful. Morning came slowly and wearily to the besieged. As the gray dawn melted into the rosy hues of sunrise, many a brave man within that fort looked up for the last time, as he thought, but still with no unmanly fear, only with that sad feeling which the boldest will experience when he sees himself about to be immolated. Such a feeling, perhaps, crossed the heart of Leonidas, when he fastened on his buckler and waited for the Persian thousands. Fernando stood near Croghan, who was in front of his men, calm in that hour of extreme peril. It soon became apparent that the enemy did not intend an immediate assault, for, with the battery of six pieces, they began a fearful cannonade. "Lie under the breastworks," said Croghan to his men as the balls were hurled about the fort, or bounded from the ramparts. The surface of the ground in the line of fire, soon became covered with smoke, which every few moments was rent by a whistling ball. All that long forenoon Fernando Stevens remained behind the works occasionally picking off a gunner at long range. When the hot August sun began to decline in the West, the roar of artillery seemed to increase rather than diminish. At last he heard the young commander say: