es so exhausted with their tour of duty that they have to be
carried off the ground."

Mr. Thorold looked at me, a very keen bright look of his hazel eyes;
but he said nothing.

"And he said that the little white boxes at the corners of the camp,
were monuments to those who had fallen on duty."

"Just four of them!" said Mr. Thorold, settling his cap down over his
brows; but then he laughed, and I laughed; how we laughed!

"Don't you want to see the rest of it?" he said, jumping up. I did not
know there was anything more to see. Now however he brought me up on
the high angle of the parapet that had intercepted my view to the
north. I could hardly get away from there. The full magnificence of
the mountains in that quarter; the river's course between them, the
blue hills of the distant Shawangunk range, and the woody chasm
immediately at my feet, stretching from the height where I stood over
to the crest of the Crow's Nest; it took away my breath. I sat down
again, while Mr. Thorold pointed out localities; and did not move,
till I had to make way for another party of visitors who were coming.
Then Mr. Thorold took me all round the edge of the fort. At the south,
we looked down into the woody gorge where Dr. Sandford and I had
hunted for fossil infusoria. From here the long channel of the river
running southernly, with its bordering ridge of hills, and above all,
the wealth and glory of the woodland and the unheaved rocks before me,
were almost as good as the eastern view. The path along the parapet
in places was narrow and dizzy; but I did not care for it, and my
companion went like a chamois. He helped me over the hard places; hand
in hand we ran down the steep slopes; and as we went we got very well
acquainted. At last we climbed up the crumbling masonry to a small
platform which commanded the view both east and south.

"What is this place for?" I asked.

"To plant guns on."

"They could not reach to the river, could they?"

"Much further--the guns of nowadays."

"And the old vaults under here--I saw them as we passed by,--were they
prisons, places for prisoners?"

"A sort of involuntary prisoners," said Mr. Thorold. "They are only
casemates; prisons for our own men occasionally, when shot and shell
might be flying too thick; hiding-places, in short. Would you like to
go to the laboratory some day, where we learn to make different kinds
of shot, and fire-works and such things?"

"Oh, very much! But, Mr. Th