Page:Barbour--Metipoms Hostage.djvu/125

Rh of the sloping plateau. Before it, as David recalled, lay a hillside of grass and thicket  and then the forest. Back of it, as he could see, the side of the mountain sloped more  steeply, strewn with ledges and rocks, but  the forest did not begin again for some distance, perhaps an eighth of a mile. It seemed to him that, while the fort might be well  enough disposed against attack by savages,  an enemy armed with muskets could do no  little damage from the edge of the forest  above, although the distance was too great  to permit of accurate shooting. The palisade was high and strong, the top of each log being sharply pointed. A few peep-holes, no larger than one might speed an arrow or  thrust a spear through, had been left at certain places in the English fashion. Two platforms of saplings lashed together with strips of hide or twisted roots offered posts of observation above the wall. The gate or door was narrow and was closed by a roughly-hewn barricade of oak planks so heavy that  David doubted the ability of fewer than three  men to move it into place.

The sachem’s wigwam stood by itself near the center of the enclosure and was larger  than any other and more elaborately adorned