ring of French were to run up and down the streets proclaiming that
every habitan who left his house would be shot. No provision being made
for the drummer boy (I had left my drum on the heights above), I chose
the favored column, at the head of which Tom and Cowan and Ray and McCann
were striding behind Kenton and Colonel Clark. Not a word was spoken.
There was a kind of cow-path that rose and fell and twisted along the
river-bank. This we followed, and in ten minutes we must have covered
the mile to the now darkened village. The starlight alone outlined
against the sky the houses of it as we climbed the bank. Then we halted,
breathless, in a street, but there was no sound save that of the crickets
and the frogs. Forward again, and twisting a corner, we beheld the
indented edge of the stockade. Still no hail, nor had our moccasined
feet betrayed us as we sought the river side of the fort and drew up
before the big river gates of it. Simon Kenton bore against them, and
tried the little postern that was set there, but both were fast. The
spikes towered a dozen feet overhead.

"Quick!" muttered Clark, "a light man to go over and open the postern."

Before I guessed what was in his mind, Cowan seized me.

"Send the lad, Colonel," said he.

"Ay, ay," said Simon Kenton, hoarsely.

In a second Tom was on Kenton's shoulders, and they passed me up with as
little trouble as though I had been my own drum. Feverishly searching
with my foot for Tom's shoulder, I seized the spikes at the top,
clambered over them, paused, surveyed the empty area below me, destitute
even of a sentry, and then let myself down with the aid of the cross-bars
inside. As I was feeling vainly for the bolt of the postern, rays of
light suddenly shot my shadow against the door. And next, as I got my
hand on the bolt-head, I felt the weight of another on my shoulder, and a
voice behind me said in English:--

"In the devil's name!"

I gave the one frantic pull, the bolt slipped, and caught again. Then
Colonel Clark's voice rang out in the night:--

"Open the gate! Open the gate in the name of Virginia and the
Continental Congress!"

Before I could cry out the man gave a grunt, leaned his gun against the
gate, and tore my fingers from the bolt-handle. Astonishment robbed me
of breath as he threw open the postern.

"In the name of the Continental Congress," he cried, and seized his gun.
Clark and Kenton stepped in instantly, no doubt as astounded as I,