Page:Lost with Lieutenant Pike (1919).djvu/272

 fringe, so that nobody can climb in. All around, outside, there will be a deep ditch four feet wide, and filled with water. This is called a moat. We will cut a row of loopholes in the walls, eight feet up; the men will stand upon platforms, to shoot through. Our only entrance will be a hole, about the size of a man's body, low down, on the river side; and to use it, everybody will have to crawl in or out on his stomach, and cross the big ditch by means of a plank. There will be no roof; this is what is called a stockade. But the men doubtless will construct shelters of brush."

"You'll be a soldier yet," the doctor laughed, to Stub, overhearing the explanation.

"Entrenched here we need have no fear of one hundred Spanish troops," the lieutenant remarked. "We could easily stand them off for a day or two; then by a sally at night either disperse them, or make our escape in the darkness, before our supplies were exhausted."

"And Indians?"

"They would be less dangerous, unless they sent word to Santa Fe in the south. We would endeavor to treat with them, which is one of the purposes of the expedition."

Jake Carter and Alex Roy were not able to do