They had some of the carbine cartridges left; and as they no longer killed any creatures, the bullets would supply them with lead to unite the small pieces of isinglass and outline their designs. One of the mica blocks chanced to be of a pale-green color, and they made many experiments to produce reds and blues. Oxide of iron, or the common red iron-rust, gave a rich carmine powder, which, mixed with the white of an egg, adhered to the inner side of the small panes. They found a few dried huckleberries, from which they extracted a strong blue by boiling. They could procure yellow only by beating a small bit of gold to the thinnest leaf, which they pasted upon the flake of mica. The reds and blues as they applied them were only water-colors; but the inner side of the glass was not exposed to the rain. After the one square window, which looked toward the Cove and consequently let in the afternoon sun, was finished in a fantastic arrangement of the three rich colors, bordered by pale green, it was decided, with great enthusiasm, to reproduce in the opposite window their dear old flag with its thirty-five stars. To do this, they cut away the logs on one side until they had doubled the area of the opening. They managed to stiffen the frame on the inner side with strips of dogwood, which made a single cross against the light, leaving the blue field of stars unobstructed. It was a great comfort to their patriotic hearts to see the sun glowing on their United States window when they awoke in the morning, or to see the ruddy firelight dancing on the old flag, if one of them came in from the mill or the branch in the evening. In fact, when this work was finished, the three soldiers, wrapped in their faded blue overcoats, were never tired of walking about outside their house, in the chilly November evenings, to admire their first art-work illuminated by the torch-light within. Their tough, bare feet, insensible to the sharp stones and the gray hoar-frost, wore away the withered grass opposite to each of their stained-glass windows; but the patch of trodden earth outside the window which showed the glowing stripes and gleaming stars of the old flag was much the larger.