“If Jonathan Ogden and Giles March have described to you one-half the horrors which we three have witnessed since yesterday’s sun rose, then must you know that, until some great change can be effected, are we bound to remain here, where those whom we love are in reasonable safety, and it seems to me as if we could do no better than settle down with the idea of making this our abiding-place for a time.” “That is all which can be done,” Master Bartlett added. “With so many hands, the labor of making the cave more habitable will be simple, and it is not likely, unless we ourselves grow careless, that any of the enemy will come to suspect the whereabouts of our refuge.” “Of course we must know what may be going on in the valley,” Giles March said, quickly, “and there should not be overmuch danger if one of us sets out very soon in gaining the information.” “I will be that one, and go to-night,” Daniel Hinchman said, before it was possible for me to propose that I myself make the venture. “The canoe in which I came across the river is hidden snugly some distance from the water, and I alone can find it.” Master Bartlett nodded his head, as if to say that the proposition was one which should be entertained by us, and, therefore, without further words, was it settled that Daniel should go out at nightfall to learn what he might. Such information as he brought back would determine our future movements, although we were well convinced that there could be no immediate change of location. The women, together with those of us who were not wounded, spent the remainder of this day in working upon our underground dwelling, and many and great were the improvements we made. Master Bartlett, with the assistance of Miles Parker, succeeded in drilling a hole for a chimney, as had been proposed, and Stephen Morley made a serviceable fireplace of rocks at the farther end of the cave near the spring. The women, by weaving boughs together, succeeded in setting up something in the shape of a screen which shut off a small portion of the cave for their sleeping quarters, and, without very much disturbance of the foliage, we rolled two large boulders to the mouth of the cavern in such a manner as satisfied me that we could stand a long siege, however many might come against us. As a matter of course, our food consisted of deer meat or birds, cooked without salt, and nothing more; but people who have been as near death as we had, and come off alive, are not warranted in complaining about the quality or the sameness of their provisions, provided there be sufficient to satisfy hunger. To my mind God had been very good to us,--better far than our deserts, for He had led us through a Red Sea of blood to this refuge, and verily we had cause for most fervent thanksgiving.