f the "fort," shortly before nightfall.
Adney then stationed one of the boys with his drum at a point to the
northeast of the log fortress, at a distance of about half a mile from
it, in the thick woods. Another was posted farther around to the north;
and still another to the northwest.

Adney's orders to them all were to keep quiet at their posts until they
heard him fire a gun. Then all three were to beat the "long roll," then
a quickstep; in fact, they were to make all the drum-racket they could,
as if a number of companies, or regiments, were advancing on the fort
from all quarters, except the south.

Adney himself went down near the fort, just at dusk, and contrived to
give the inmates a glimpse of his figure in his army blue--as if he were
a spy, reconnoitering the place. He then withdrew, and ten or fifteen
minutes later, fired off his gun, when at once from three different
points, in the darkening forest, there burst forth the roll of drums,
Adney calling out in military accents, "_Steady! Close up! Forward!
Forward!_"

The result showed that the young soldier's estimate of the valor of the
skedaddlers was a perfectly correct one. For no sooner did they hear the
roll of drums, than, fancying that they were being surrounded by a force
of soldiers, they deserted their fort and skedaddled again, out through
the woods on the south side. From the stories they afterward told, it is
pretty clear that they did some remarkable running that night, and were
about as badly frightened as they could be. Six or seven of them kept to
the woods and made their way into Canada, where they lived till after
the close of the War. One, the "Lieutenant" of the gang, ran home--as
his wife told the story--and hid under a pile of old straw in the back
yard. Several others were known by their neighbors to be lurking at
their homes, keeping in cellars and chambers, during the following week.
In short, this well-planned "attack" of Adney's broke up their
rendezvous in the "great woods," and the fort was never occupied
afterwards. The young soldier, who had approached near enough to witness
the stampede, bivouacked his small drum-corps there that night very
comfortably, and marched home in triumph next morning. The affair
created much merriment and many jokes; and the moral would seem to be,
that a fellow who will sneak off when his country calls for his
services, is never a person to be feared as a warrior.

It was not a very pleasant pl