fire burning outside, with kettles hanging from a pole
over it.

Every two or three days thereafter, Sam Murch, as he trapped, would go
around for a sly peep at the "fort;" and he kept people informed as to
appearances there.

It chanced that in October, that fall, a young volunteer, named Adney
Deering, came home on a furlough. He had been wounded slightly in the
leg, by a fragment of shell.

Adney, who was a bright, handsome young fellow, then in his twentieth
year, looked very spruce in his blue uniform. He was brimful of
patriotism and gave graphic accounts of battles, with warlike ardor.
When he heard of the "skedaddlers" and their fort, he expressed the
greatest indignation and contempt for them. At a husking party one
evening, several of the young men proposed that Adney should go with
them on a deer hunt in the "great woods," before he went back to his
regiment. Someone then remarked that, if he went, he had better not wear
his uniform, as threats had been made of shooting the first soldier who
showed his head in the woods. This aroused Adney's ire. "Let them
shoot!" he exclaimed. "I will wear my uniform anywhere I choose to go! I
will go all through those woods and walk right up to the door of their
'fort!'"

Several of the older men then advised him not to go near the "fort."

"Pooh!" cried Adney. "I used to know many of those fellows. They are a
set of cowards. Ten to one, they wouldn't dare fire at a soldier!"

Others who were present thought they would dare; and Adney became
excited. "It is a disgrace," he exclaimed, "that those skulkers are
allowed to harbor there!" And he offered to wager that he could take six
soldiers and drive them out, without firing a single cartridge.

One or two of his friends laughed at this boast, which so exasperated
Adney that he instantly declared that he could drive them out alone. All
laughed still more heartily at that. The laughter only stimulated Adney
to make good his rather loud boast, if possible; and the result was,
that he hit on the following stratagem for routing the "skedaddlers."
There was no lack of drums in the neighborhood, for in those days the
boys, who were not old enough to volunteer, had fond dreams of going to
the War as drummer-boys. Adney went about privately next morning with
Sam Murch and induced three or four young fellows to take drums and go
with him into the woods that afternoon. Under Sam's lead the little
party arrived in the vicinity o