Ten minutes later, for we were forced to move slowly, lest our whereabouts be made known, we climbed out on the bank once more, with no idea of where we might be, save that it seemed probable we were yet to the northward of Wilkesbarre, and no sooner had we emerged from the river than we heard from behind us a voice say in English: “They haven’t got below here, that much is certain; but now to prevent them from landing.” Then came a reply in the Indian tongue, which I failed to understand, and Master Bartlett whispered: “It’s a case of making our way into the thicket, lads, else are we taken to a certainty.” And so it was that we went forward blindly in the darkness, stumbling here over some fallen tree, or tripping there across a trailing vine, until it seemed as if we must give our pursuers good knowledge of where we were. Then suddenly, believing there was before us only the thicket, we came full upon a stockade with such force that I was knocked backward two or three feet. “Where are we?” Giles March whispered, and I replied, heeding not the fact that we had with us one more familiar with the country than ourselves: “I know not, save it be we have wandered back to Pittstown,” whereupon he asked, irritably: “How can that be, Jonathan Ogden? We have come with the current, and not against it.” “This must be a fort which Jonathan should know full well, since it bears his own name,” Master Bartlett said, quietly. “Fort Ogden!” I exclaimed, and there came to my mind the memory of how proud I had been when the stockade was built, and the people decided it should be named in honor of my father, who had given his life for the Cause at the battle of Long Island. “Then we are with friends,” Giles cried, exultantly, feeling his way along the logs to come at the gate, “and from here to Wilkesbarre is but a short distance, if we are not minded to stay.” Master Bartlett held his peace, and I thought it strange that he should not give way to joy, when for the second time were we come as if from out the very jaws of death. Groping with our hands, because the darkness was so intense that we could not see even the trees in front of us, we made our way around the wall of logs until come to the entrance. The gates were open; the enclosure vacant save for the small blockhouse which stood, as I knew, on the western side. “Have they all been killed?” Giles asked, in a tone of horror, and Master Bartlett replied: “Nay, lad, that isn’t probable. Fort Jenkins was the first stockade John Butler would desire to take, and this could well be left until that work was accomplished. I dare venture to say you will find those who garrisoned this place in Forty Fort, for, if you remember, Elias Shendle told us that that stockade had been decided upon as the rendezvous for all in the valley, and the people are wise to gather at one place rather than try to hold many.”