They kept late hours that night; but at last, when the fire was burning low and great masses of coals had accumulated, they swung a military cloak hammock-wise across a corner of a little inner room, hardly more than a cupboard, and this Millie Fisher in her new rôle as a campaigner found a comfortable bed enough. The restricted apartment had no window, and no door save the one opening into the larger room; and this she set ajar, making Walter place a great solid shot against it lest it close, declaring that if that catastrophe should supervene, she should die of solitary fright. The five Fisher brothers were well within call and sight, as they clustered around the embers, talking for a time in low voices of what had chanced in the interval of their separation. For only Jim and Watt were together in the same company. They commented on the relative cost and value of their _chaussure_, as they stretched out their long, booted legs, with their feet on the hearth, and compared the wearing qualities of the soles and upper leather. They looked kindly into each other's faces and laughed as they made a point, and between the two younger brothers, Watt and Lucien, there was a disposition to horse-play, manifested in unexpected tweaks, that each was glad to receive as a compliment, so did separation and the sense of an imminent and ever environing danger soften and make tender their fraternal sentiment. But first one, then another, flung his cloak around him and, pillowing his head on his saddle, lay down to rest, the two younger brothers the last of all. And now--silence. The dull red light of the embers gloomed on the daubed and chinked walls of the old log house, with its rude puncheon floor. The five prostrate, cloaked figures upon it were still, asleep. Here and there from amongst the arms, placed ready to seize at a moment's notice, came a keen steely gleam. Mildred could hear the sentry's tread outside up and down before the door. Once, far away, she noted the measured tramp of marching feet, then a challenge, and anon, "Stand! Grand Rounds! Advance, Sergeant, with the countersign!" and presently the march was resumed in the distance. And again--silence! Only the wind astir in the forest, only the rustle of the lush foliage. All--how different from her dainty bedroom where she had spent last night, the downy couch, the silken coverlet, the velvet carpet, the lace curtains, the tremulous flicker of the wind in the flower-stand on the balcony! "Hugh!" she said suddenly. Every red head on the floor had lifted at the sound, and every hand had clutched a weapon. "What's the matter, Sister?" "I--I--believe there must be a flying squirrel or--or--something in the wall. Don't they build in old walls? I've seen that in some book." Jim and Hugh arose and investigated the wall of the inner room by means of a torch of light-wood. "Why, Sister, it is as solid as a rock!" Jim asseverated. "There's no flying squirrel here."