“It is for you and me, Giles, to be certain the others do their duty faithfully. We will make the round of the stockade, you starting toward the east and I the west, until something more is known of the foe. Don’t expose yourself foolishly, for it will be a serious matter indeed when one of our small company is disabled.” Then we clambered up on the logs which gave us footing all the way around the enclosure, and had hardly more than shown ourselves when a bullet whistled past Giles’s head, so near that he clapped his hand to his cheek, believing he had been wounded. My heart sank within me, for now I knew beyond a question that the Indians, or the Tories, or both, had set about capturing Jenkins’s Fort, to the end that it might not shelter those who were in position to give warning of the doings at Wintermoot’s. Strain our eyes as we might, it was not possible to distinguish any form amid the foliage where the tiny curl of smoke was rising above the leaves to tell of the whereabouts of him who had fired, and I said bitterly to myself, unconscious of giving breath to the words: “They count on regularly besieging the place and starving us out. It won’t be a long job, for our provisions are none too abundant.” I had dropped to my knees while speaking, with my face pressed against the aperture left where two logs were joined together, and Giles, crouching by my side, his eyes fixed upon the underbrush directly in front of us, said grimly: “We have enough in plenty for two days; by halving that, we can hold out four, and should be able to get along on wind for two more, making six. Within that time some one should come from Forty Fort, or thereabouts, to learn how we are faring.” “Ay, so they should, Giles, if it be possible, but in case those who hold Wintermoot’s are determined on gaining possession of this place, they will take good care no succor comes from that direction.” Then a shot rang out from the north side of the stockade, and there could no longer be any question but that my worst fears were to be realized. Leaping to the ground, I ran across the enclosure until I came to where the shot had been fired, and there asked if they had seen their target distinctly. “Ay, enough to tell us that it was an Indian, but the bullet went wide of its mark,” one of the lads replied. “We must be regularly surrounded, and the red villains don’t propose to show themselves any more than may be absolutely necessary in order to keep us fairly well in view.” Disheartening as were those words, they cheered me in a certain measure, for I began to realize that those who menaced us must have been in their present position some time before sunrise, and it was possible that Elias, succeeding in making his way through the lines when he started out, had found himself unable to return. He might be at that moment trying to gain an entrance.