Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1966 by Battle at Bear Paw Gap (v1.1)

           “What
of the floor?” Esau asked. “You need to split puncheons for that.”
                 “Nay,
the floor will come later,” Mark decided. “What we want at once is four stout
walls and a roof.”
                 Celia
came out. She carried a wooden bucket, and she went to the spring and put in
clay and water. These she worked with her hands to make a crude mortar, and
found an old shingle for a trowel. As Mark and Esau built the poles higher for
the walls, Celia and Will chinked between the poles, using bucket after bucket
of well-kneaded clay mortar.
                 By
the time Durwell, Stoke, and Ramsey had arrived to confer with Jarrett, the
walls had been raised and partially chinked. Esau was fitting in rough frames
for window and door, and Mark was riving a bigger log into planks, to fasten
with cleats for the door itself. Mace Hollon came to join the council. As Mark
labored, he heard Durwell tell of the strange visitor to his mill. Then Tsukala
spoke, and the settlers listened attentively.
                 “Sore
trouble is coming upon us, and that soon,” declared Ramsey. “I would it was not
so far eastward to Pine Fort. We might send a call for a company of militia, to
find and fight these red devils.”
                 “They’d
never wait to face a strong force of fighting men,” was Hollon’s comment. “But
I am like you others, I think they’ll try ere long to
do whatever they came to do. And Tsukala thinks they want to capture Simon
Durwell’s mill, not destroy it outright.” “There is food there,” said Tsukala.
“Corn is there, ground into meal. So many Indians have a hard time to find
food. They can eat up a deer in one day.” “They are eating up our deer,”
grumbled Leland Stoke. “I begrudge no hungry man his food, but these are
enemies.”
                “I’ll send news of this danger to
both the east and the west, by the next travelers who stop at the tavern,”
promised Hollon. “But meanwhile, what should we do? Must we only sit where we
are and wait?”
                 “Nay,
I can think of naught else to do,” said Ramsey.
                 The
men spoke of what preparations they could arrange. Every household had several
firearms. At the tavern there was a small arsenal, no less than three rifles
and four muskets. The Jarretts had Hugh’s hunting rifle and Mark’s, a lighter
gun for fowling, and a pistol. Stoke told his friends of good armament at his
cave, which he, his son, and their two wives could use handily. And Ramsey told
of the Sheltons and the Laphams moving to his house for the time being, which
meant a fair garrison beyond the ridge.
                 “Again
I say, none of us must venture lightly into the woods below the river,” Jarrett
ordered. “At present, I think that at this point we are strong—my household and
my brother Mace’s, and all ready to face and fight any rascally raiders. Leland
Stoke, you say the same for those at your cave—’tis a true natural fortress,
and can be held. The gathering at Seth Ramsey’s is likewise strong. Only at the
mill, as I deem it, have we a chancey point in our line.”
                 “Yet
I’ll hold the mill,” pronounced Durwell stoutly. “You neighbors of mine need
that mill, and ’tis my home and my castle. I’ve not come through a bloody war
with England to be faint at the thought of more fighting.
                 It
was voted that men from the various households make it their business to visit
the mill frequently, always armed and vigilant. On that decision, the meeting
broke up.
                 Mark
and Will spent the rest of the day adding final touches to their new sleeping
room. They laid rafters and put a shed roof of split slabs upon it, then
covered this roof with sheets of bark and then carried clay to spread upon it
to make it fireproof. The door was