It was about a third of a mile to the stockade-wall around the fort, and Ben was at least half an hour in going that distance, and as he drew near the fort, he was in momentary expectation of hearing the crack of a musket and feeling the sting of a bullet. Ben was not discovered, however. At any rate, there was no musket-shot or outcry. All was quiet, and on reaching the wall, Ben sat down, with his back against the logs, and rested a while. It had been rather trying on his nerves to crawl across the open space under the light of the moon, faint though it was. When he had got rested, Ben turned and began making an examination of the wall. He found that it was made of large logs, flattened at the sides and placed on top of one another. The wall was, he judged, about twelve feet high. Ben worked his way slowly along the wall, feeling between the logs, for openings, as he wished to learn how thick the wall was, and whether it would be possible to batter it down with the field-pieces that General Greene had brought with the army. Presently Ben found an opening, through which he pushed his hand, and his fingers came in contact with another log on the inside. The wall was at least two logs in thickness, and this would make it difficult to batter it down with the field-pieces. The patriot youth continued to work his way along the wall, and on reaching the corner, he turned it and made his way along the wall on that side. He kept on till he had made the circuit of the stockade-wall, and he guessed the wall as being about two hundred feet in each direction. Near one corner of the wall Ben had found a place where there were several openings between the logs, and he believed that he could climb to the top of the wall, there. He decided to make the attempt, anyway, as all was quiet. He wished to get a look into the enclosure, if he possibly could. He made his way to the point in question, and then he began the work of climbing to the top of the wall. This proved to be more difficult than he had expected, and he began to think he would not be able to reach the top, after several unsuccessful attempts, but presently he managed to get high enough up the side of the wall so that he could get hold of the top log, and then he slowly and cautiously pulled himself up till his head was a little above the top of the wall. Now he exercised great caution, lifting his head slowly, a little at a time, till he was enabled to look into the enclosure. He could see the building constituting the fort, and at the farther side he saw a sentinel pacing slowly back and forth on the platform built against the wall, and about five feet from the top. The sentinel’s side was toward Ben when he was pacing back and forth, however, and when he paused to look away from the fort, his back was toward the youth, so Ben did much fear being seen by him. But there should have been a sentinel on the side where Ben was, and he wondered where the sentinel could be.