"I haven't been around here for the past four an' twenty hours with my eyes shut an' my ears filled with moss. Take a turn about the works, listenin' to all that is said, an' you'll find I'm not wrong in my figgerin'. The colonel knows as well as do I what's in the wind, an' I'll agree never to eat sweet-cake agin if he ain't makin' ready for trouble inside the fort as well as outside." I remained silent a full minute, horrified by the bare possibility, and then asked, in a voice which trembled despite all my efforts to render it steady: "Think you they can force him against his will, as the militia did General Herkimer?" "It is my belief that he'd shoot down a round dozen before consentin' to give us all over to death; but there's no knowin' what a man may be forced into when pressure enough has been brought to bear upon him." At this moment Jacob came up, looking like his old self now that his father was safe, at least, for the time being, and to him I put the matter much as I had had it from the sergeant. "Within the hour I have heard the same word from my father. He believes there are a full hundred of the garrison who, when they have worked themselves up to just such a pitch, will howl for surrender." Even then I refused to believe in what was as yet no more than a suspicion, and Sergeant Corney said, impatiently: "It won't cost you much time to find out for yourself, lad. Take a couple of turns around, an' I'll guarantee you'll agree that Peter Sitz an' I are not tryin' to make mountains out of mole-hills." "I'll go with you," Jacob said, promptly, and straightway we set out, keeping our ears open whenever we came within speaking distance of a group of men who appeared to be talking earnestly upon some particular subject. It was not necessary that we should go twice around the inside of the fortification, for before we completed the first circuit I had heard enough to convince me that Sergeant Corney, instead of exaggerating the matter, had not made his statements strong enough by one-half. As it seemed to me, a full third of the garrison were arguing in favor of surrender, giving as their reasons the scanty supply of powder for the cannon, and the probability that St. Leger's army would constantly increase as the Tories from the Mohawk Valley got wind of what was going on. I was sick at heart and literally faint with fear when this knowledge was forced in upon me, for I knew only too well how idle would be all the promises of St. Leger if the savages were inclined to massacre the prisoners that were surrendered on promises of fair treatment. Chapter XIV. Mutiny I had thought that we would never again be called upon to witness such a scene as that in General Herkimer's encampment on the morning when those who, later, were the first to show the white feather, literally drove him into a place where he, as a soldier, knew it was not safe to venture until all the arrangements for a sortie from the fort were completed.