of an attack from the Indians, and
were the more apprehensive of this from the fact that on such a march they
were necessarily in a very defenseless condition. Besides, the rain fell
so continually and so abundantly that the men could not keep the locks of
their muskets dry. They went on, however, in this way for many hours, but
at last they came to the house of a solitary German settler, and here they
determined to stop for the night. The whole troop crowded into the house
and into the barn, where they lay that night huddled together, and "as
wet," Franklin says, "as water could make them." The next day, however,
was fair, and they proceeded on their march in a somewhat more comfortable
manner.

They arrived at length at Gnadenhuetten, where a most melancholy spectacle
awaited them. The village was in ruins. The country people of the
neighborhood had attempted to give the bodies of the murdered inhabitants
a hurried burial; but they had only half performed their work, and the
first duty which devolved on Franklin's soldiers was to complete the
interment in a proper manner. The next thing to be thought of was to
provide some sort of shelter for the soldiers; for they had no tents, and
all the houses had been destroyed.

There was a mill near by, around which were several piles of pine boards
which the Indians had not destroyed. Franklin set his troops at work to
make huts of these boards, and thus in a short time his whole army was
comfortably sheltered. All this was done on the day and evening of their
arrival, and on the following morning the whole force was employed in
commencing operations upon the fort.

The fort was to be built of palisades, and it was marked out of such a
size that the circumference was four hundred and fifty-five feet. This
would require four hundred and fifty-five palisades; for the palisades
were to be formed of logs, of a foot in diameter upon an average, and
eighteen feet long. The palisades were to be obtained from the trees in
the neighborhood, and these trees were so tall that each tree would make
three palisades. The men had seventy axes in all, and the most skillful
and able woodmen in the company were immediately set at work to fell the
trees. Franklin says that he was surprised to observe how fast these axmen
would cut the trees down; and at length he had the curiosity to look at
his watch when two men began to cut at a pine. They brought it down in six
minutes; and on measuring it