Last Three Soldiers — The Cave Of The Bats; The Stained-glass Windows And The Prismatic Fowls

THE CAVE OF THE BATS

When the nine small gunny-sacks stenciled "Skylark, 1870," were emptied on the floor of the house, the Crustacea of the Atlantic's sands had found a resting-place on the summit of Whiteside Mountain, and might yet furnish evidence to some grave scientist of the future to prove beyond a doubt that the sea at no very remote period had surged above the peaks of the Blue Ridge.

Starfish, shells, and bones, and fragments of the legs of spider-crabs, horseshoe-crabs, and crayfish, and some very active sand-fleas afforded much scientific amusement to our exiles, and brought vividly to mind the boom of the sea and the whitebait and whales that wiggle-waggle in its depth.

Neither the telescope nor the army blanket with "U. S."

in the center, nor the two combined, had brought any visitors to the three soldiers, nor any information of the real state of affairs in the United States, which would quickly have terminated their exile.

The very pathetic and amusing volume of stories found in the alligator-skin bag caused more tears and healthy laughter than the soldiers had given way to since their great disappointment, and actually brought about such neglect of the October work on the plantation that more than half the potato crop rotted in the ground.

On the 21st of that month in this very balloon year, the area of Sherman Territory was extended by the addition of half an acre of rocks and brambles on the boulder side of the mountain, and afterward of much more, as will be shown in due time.

The twenty-first day of October in the year '70, then, was a lowery day.

A strong, humid wind was blowing steadily across the mountain and soughing in the boughs of the pines, while the low clouds, westward bound, flew in ragged rifts overhead.

It was a pleasant wind to feel, and the rising and falling cadence of its song reminded the soldiers of a wind from the sea.

In the successive seasons they had gleaned the grove so thoroughly, even cutting the dry limbs from the trees, that they were now obliged to search under the carpet of needles for the fat pine-knots which formerly lay in abundance on the surface.

At the extreme southern end of the tongue of land on which the pines grew, a solitary stump clung in the base of the cliff.

The outer fiber of the wood had crumbled away, leaving the resinous heart and the tough roots firmly bedded in the soil.

They had been chopping and digging for an hour before they loosened and removed the central mass.

Continuing their quest for one of the great roots which ran into the earth under the cliff, George dealt a vigorous stroke on the rotten stone and earth behind, which yielded so unexpectedly that he lost his footing, and at the same time his hold on the ax, which promptly disappeared into the bowels of the earth.

They heard it ring upon the rocks below with strange echoes, as if it had fallen into a subterraneous cavern.

At the same time the wind rushed through the opening in a current warmer than the surrounding atmosphere, and brought with it a strong, offensive smell, as if they had entered a menagerie in August.

As soon as the soldiers recovered from their surprise they set vigorously to work for the recovery of the ax, attacking the loose earth with their gold-tipped shovel and with the tough oaken handspike with which they had been prying at the stump.

Their efforts rapidly enlarged the opening, and presently the great root itself tumbled in after the ax.

Philip ran to the house for a light, and by the time he returned with a blazing torch, Coleman and Bromley had enlarged the opening under the cliff until it was wide enough to admit their bodies easily.

All was darkness, even blackness, within, and the rank animal smell was as offensive as ever, so that Philip held his nose in disgust.

By passing the torch into the opening of the cavern they could see the ax lying on the earthen floor ten feet below, and to the right the overlapping strata of granite seemed to offer a rude stairway for their descent.

George entered at once, with the torch in one hand, and in the other the handspike with which to test his footing in advance.

In another moment he stood on the hard floor by the ax and the light of his torch revealed the rocky sides of the cavern stretching away to the south along the side of the mountain.

Coleman provided himself with one of the fattest of the pine-knots, and descended into the cavern after Bromley.

With some hesitation Philip followed.

The resinous smoke of the torches relieved the subterraneous atmosphere somewhat of its offensive animal odor, and the flames flooded the walls and ceiling with light.

Their voices, calling to each other as they advanced, sounded abnormally loud, and seemed to fill the space about them with a cavernous ring in which they detected no side echoes which would indicate lateral chambers branching off from the main passage.

By the current of air flaring the torches back toward the opening they had made, they knew that the passage itself must be open to the day at its other end.

The roof seemed to be about eight feet above their heads, although at times it drew nearer, and occasionally it retired to a greater altitude, but never beyond the searching illumination of their torches.

Presently, as they advanced, their attention was drawn to brown masses of something like fungi clinging to the rock overhead, but partaking so closely of the color and texture of the stone that they seemed, after all, to be but flinty lumps on the roof.

As Bromley, who was in front, came to a point where the ceiling hung so low as to be within reach, he swept the flame of his torch across one of these brown patches, and straightway the stifling air was filled with a squeaking, unearthly chorus, and with the beating of innumerable wings.

Scorched by the flame and blinded by the light, many of these disabled creatures, which proved to be a colony of bats, fluttered to the floor, and dashed against the bare feet of the soldiers with a clammy touch that made the cold chills rise in their hair.

This was too much for Philip, who turned back to join Tumbler in the open air at the mouth of the cavern.

At the same time, however, the offensive odor was accounted for, and Bromley and Coleman had no further fear of meeting larger animals as they advanced.

As a lover of animals, George was shocked at the cruel consequences of his rash action; as a bold explorer, however, he pushed on into the gruesome darkness at a pace that soon left Coleman's prudent feet far behind.

The latter had a wholesome fear of treading on some yielding crust which might precipitate him to other and more terrible depths.

The way seemed to turn somewhat as they advanced; for at times the light of George's torch vanished behind the projection of one or the other wall, and at such times Coleman called eagerly to him to wait.

Bromley's cheery voice, evidently advancing, came ringing back so distinctly that his companion was reassured by his seeming nearness.

Once, when the darkness had continued for a long time in front, Coleman began to be alarmed at the thought that Bromley's torch must have gone out, and then the fear that he might have fallen into some fissure in the rocks made him cold about the heart.

Lieutenant Coleman was now picking his way more gingerly than ever, and holding his light high above his head, when, to add to his terror, he thought he heard something approaching behind him.

Sure enough, when he turned about, in the darkness of the cavern just beyond the illumination of his torch he saw two gleaming eyes.

The eyes were fixed upon him, and the head of the animal moved from side to side, but came no nearer.

He would have given worlds for the carbine.

His blood ran cold in his veins at the thought of his terrible situation.

He was utterly helpless, hemmed in by the rocks.

It was impossible to go back.

He could only go forward.

He remembered then that the fiercest of wild animals, even lions and tigers, kept back in the darkness and glared all night with their hungry eyes at the fires of hunters.

He was safe, then, to go on, but a dreadful conflict was in store for the two men if the animal should follow them out of the cavern.

[Illustration: "BEYOND THE ILLUMINATION OF HIS TORCH HE SAW TWO GLEAMING EYES."

] Bromley's torch now reappeared in the distance.

Coleman was too terrified to call, but instead moved on in silence, occasionally flaring his torch behind him, and always seeing the gleaming eyes when he looked back.

Try as he would, he could get no farther from them.

There were occasional stumbling-blocks in the way, and once or twice he encountered rocks which he was obliged to pass around.

Whenever Coleman turned and waved the torch, the animal whined as if he too were in fear.

Terrified as Lieutenant Coleman was, he could not help noticing that the brown colonies of bats now appeared more frequently on the stone ceiling, and presently the air grew perceptibly fresher as he advanced.

He began to realize the presence of a gray light apart from that of his torch; and finally coming sharply around a projecting rock, he saw the welcome light of day streaming in through a wide opening in the rocks, and at one side, thrust into a crevice, George's torch was flaring and smoking in the wind.

Coleman placed his torch with the other, hoping that the lights would continue to protect them from the animal and then he sprang out of the cavern into the sweet open air, with that joyous feeling of relief which can be understood only by one who has passed through a similar experience.

George was standing in the dry grass, with a great stone in each hand, as if he already knew their danger and was prepared; but when Coleman told him in hurried words what they had to expect, he dropped the stones, and they began to look about for a place of safety.

It was not far to a high rock upon which they both scrambled, and then Bromley let himself down again, and passed up a number of angular stones for ammunition.

Whatever the mysterious beast might be, they could keep him off from the rock for a time, but they were not prepared for a siege.

They had little to say to each other, and that in whispers as they strained their eyes to look into the entrance to the cavern.

Bromley, however, was softly humming a tune, and just as Coleman looked up at him in astonishment he dropped the stones from his hands and burst into laughter; and sure enough, there in the mouth of the cavern stood their tame bear, Tumbler, wagging his head from side to side just as Coleman had seen the mysterious eyes move in the darkness, and, moreover, he was still licking his chops after the feast he had made on the bats.

Lieutenant Coleman had been so alarmed at first, and then so gratified at the happy outcome of his adventure, that he had not noticed the character of the stones which Bromley had been handling.

It was not until his attention was called to a flake of mica that he looked about him on the ground, to see every where blocks and flakes of what is commonly called isinglass.

They could have something better than wooden shutters for their windows now.

By a certain gnarled chestnut which overhung the cliff above them, growing out of the hill near the spring, they estimated the length of the subterraneous passage to be not less than a quarter of a mile.

The sun, which had broken through the clouds, indicated by the angle of his rays that the afternoon was well past.

They now thought it advisable to retrace their steps through the unsavory cavern.

In view of the stifling passage, Coleman inhaled deep drafts of the sweet outer air, and shuddered involuntarily at the necessity of repeating the experience, even when he knew the animal now following him was only stupid old Tumbler.

George handed him a piece of the mica to carry, and his careless, happy mood indicated that he returned to the subterraneous passage as gaily as if it were a pleasant walk overland.

As they drew near the entrance to the cavern, with the bear shambling at their heels, an indefinable dread of trouble ahead took possession of Coleman.

It might have been the absence of the resinous smell of the torches.

At all events, they were presently standing in the gruesome half-light before the empty crevice, through which they could see their pine-knots still burning fifty feet below in an inner cavern.

As their torches had burned to the edge of the rock they had fallen through the opening.

They were without fire, and if they should succeed in striking it with their flints, they had no means of carrying it a hundred yards into the darkness.

The situation was frightful.

Outside, the perpendicular cliff rose a matter of sixty feet to the overhanging trees of the plateau, and close to the south ledge, which towered above it.

The two men and the bear were prisoners on this barren shelf of rocks, with a quarter of a mile of subterraneous darkness separating them from food and shelter--from life itself.

Was it their destiny, Coleman thought, to die of starvation among these inhospitable rocks, hung like a speck between the plateau and the valley, watched by the circling eagles and by the patient buzzards, who would perch on the nearer tree-tops to await their dissolution?

The very thought of the situation unmanned him.

[Illustration: EXPLORING THE CAVE OF THE BATS.

] Lieutenant Coleman was not a man to shrink from enemies whom he could see; but the darkness and the dangers of the half-explored cavern terrified him.

Corporal Bromley, on the other hand, was only made angry by the loss of the torches; and the livid expression of his face reminded his comrade of the morning when they had received the news of General Sherman's death before the works at Atlanta.

In a moment, however, he was calm.

Without a word, he walked away among the rocks, and when he came back he held in his hands a lithe pole ten or twelve feet long.

"Not a very interesting outlook, Fred, for a man who would rather be eating his supper," said George, trying the strength of his pole; "but you must be patient and amuse yourself as best you can."

Lieutenant Coleman stared at Bromley in speechless amazement as he disappeared into the cavern, carrying the pole across his breast.

It was something less than courage--it was the utter absence of the instinct of fear which the others had so often noticed in his character.

Would he succeed the better for the very want of this quality with which the All-wise has armed animal life for its protection?

Perhaps.

The bear was snuffing about Coleman as if he were trying to understand why he remained; and when he failed to attract his attention, he turned about and shambled after Bromley.

Although Coleman was deeply concerned by the dangers which threatened his comrade, he reasoned with certainty that wherever Bromley was, he was as calm as an oyster, regarding his progress as only a question of time and some bruises.

To keep his mind away from the cavern, he rose mechanically, and began to gather up the fragments of mica and heap them together.

For an hour he threaded his way among the rocks, thus employed.

The glittering heap grew larger, for the supply was quite inexhaustible, and he discovered fresh deposits on every hand.

It was now grown quite dark, and he made his way to the mouth of the cavern, vainly hoping to see a star advancing in the darkness, but only to meet a flight of bats wheeling out into the night.

Carefully he crept back and seated himself on a smooth stone by the side of his store of mica, and imagined himself a hunter in the middle of a trackless desert, dying for a drop of water beside a princely fortune in accumulated elephants' tusks.

When he looked up the dark mass of the tree-crowned cliff cut softly against a lighter gloom; but when he turned his eyes away from the mountain, the sky or the clouds, or whatever it might be, seemed to surround him and press upon him.

Oh, for one star in the distance to lift the sky from his head; or, better yet, the calm face of the moon, and the touch of its yellow light on tree and stone!

Instead of anything so cheerful, a patter of raindrops met his up-turned face, as if in mockery of his wish; and then the rain increased to a steady downpour, beating from the east, and he knew the autumnal equinox was upon them.

He reflected that George might never feel the rain.

Miserable thought!

What if he were to perish in the darkness, separated from him and from Philip, after having lived so long together!

Coleman might have sought shelter in the mouth of the cavern; but he was indifferent to the rain falling on his bare back and canvas trousers.

How long he had been waiting, two hours or three, he had no means of telling.

His watch had long since ceased to run.

Up on the plateau they had noon-marks at the house and at the mill, and at night, when it was clear, they went out and looked at the seven stars.

He was thoroughly drenched by the rain, which had now been falling for a long time.

Certainly George should have returned before this, if all had gone well with him.

And then his mind returned to the contemplation of that other possibility with a perverseness over which he could exercise no control.

He saw Bromley lost in some undiscovered byway of the subterraneous passage, groping his way hopelessly into the center of the mountain; knowing that he was lost when, go which way he would, his pole no longer reached the walls.

He saw him retracing his steps, now going this way, now that, but always going he knew not whither, too brave to yield to despair.

Then he saw him in a lower cavern, where he had fallen through the floor, groping about the rough walls with bleeding hands and staring eyes, patiently searching for a foothold, his indomitable pluck never failing him.

Horrible as these fancies were, others more dreadful oppressed his half-wakeful mind; for he was so tired that in spite of the rain he lapsed into a state of unconsciousness, in which he dreamed that the roof of that suffocating cavern, covered with the brown blotches of bats, was settling slowly upon George, until he could no longer walk erect.

Lower, lower it came in its fearful descent, until it bumped his head as he crawled.

Now the roof grazes his back as he writhes on his belly like a snake.

"Fred!

Old boy!

Fred!"

And there stood Bromley in the flesh, as calm as if nothing unusual had happened, the raindrops hissing in the flame of his torch.

CHAPTER XX THE STAINED-GLASS WINDOWS AND THE PRISMATIC FOWLS

Owing to the difficulties of the passage through the cave of the bats, and the utter barrenness of the rocky half-acre which lay at its other end, the three soldiers never entered it again during the fall and winter which followed its discovery.

The two blocks of isinglass which they had brought away on their first visit were ample for their purpose; and as soon as they had secured their supply of fat pine-knots for light in the long winter evenings, they set about constructing two windows to take the place of the sliding boards which closed those openings in the cold, snowy days.

It is true, they could not look out through the new windows, but much light could enter where all had been darkness before.

Time was nothing to the soldiers in these late autumn days; and, indeed, the more of it they could spend on any work they undertook, the more such work contributed to their contentment and happiness.

They wished to have their windows ornamental as well as useful; and it was Philip's suggestion that they should try an imitation of stained glass.

They had some of the carbine cartridges left; and as they no longer killed any creatures, the bullets would supply them with lead to unite the small pieces of isinglass and outline their designs.

One of the mica blocks chanced to be of a pale-green color, and they made many experiments to produce reds and blues.

Oxide of iron, or the common red iron-rust, gave a rich carmine powder, which, mixed with the white of an egg, adhered to the inner side of the small panes.

They found a few dried huckleberries, from which they extracted a strong blue by boiling.

They could procure yellow only by beating a small bit of gold to the thinnest leaf, which they pasted upon the flake of mica.

The reds and blues as they applied them were only water-colors; but the inner side of the glass was not exposed to the rain.

After the one square window, which looked toward the Cove and consequently let in the afternoon sun, was finished in a fantastic arrangement of the three rich colors, bordered by pale green, it was decided, with great enthusiasm, to reproduce in the opposite window their dear old flag with its thirty-five stars.

To do this, they cut away the logs on one side until they had doubled the area of the opening.

They managed to stiffen the frame on the inner side with strips of dogwood, which made a single cross against the light, leaving the blue field of stars unobstructed.

It was a great comfort to their patriotic hearts to see the sun glowing on their United States window when they awoke in the morning, or to see the ruddy firelight dancing on the old flag, if one of them came in from the mill or the branch in the evening.

In fact, when this work was finished, the three soldiers, wrapped in their faded blue overcoats, were never tired of walking about outside their house, in the chilly November evenings, to admire their first art-work illuminated by the torch-light within.

Their tough, bare feet, insensible to the sharp stones and the gray hoar-frost, wore away the withered grass opposite to each of their stained-glass windows; but the patch of trodden earth outside the window which showed the glowing stripes and gleaming stars of the old flag was much the larger.

Otherwise their prospects for the winter were by no means as brilliant as their windows; for besides the failure in the potato crop, the white grubs had made sad havoc with their corn in two successive plantings, and the yield in October had been alarmingly light.

Even the chestnuts had been subject to a blight; and altogether it was what the farmers would call "a bad year."

The fowls had increased to an alarming extent, considering the necessity of feeding so many, and as winter approached their eggs were fewer than ever.

The case was not so bad that it would be necessary to shorten their rations, as they had done before the harvest of the first year; but with so many mouths to feed, there was danger that they would find themselves without seed for the next planting.

Then, too, there was a very grave danger that before spring these stubborn vegetarians would be forced to resort to broiled chicken, spiced with gunpowder, which was nearly as repulsive to their minds as leaving the mountain and going down into a triumphant Confederacy.

The bear, at least, would require no feeding, and with the very first snow old Tumbler disappeared as usual, making the soldiers rather wish that, for this particular winter, hibernation could be practised by human animals as well as by bears.

After Christmas the weather became unusually cold, and the winds swept with terrific force across the top of the mountain.

The snow was so deep that the path they dug to the mill was banked above their heads as they walked in it, and the mill itself showed only its half-roof of shingles and its long water-trough above the surface of the snow.

From the trough huge icicles were pendent, and it was ornamented with great curves of snow; and when Philip set the wheels in motion, a gray dust rose above the bank, and the whir of the grinding as heard at the house was subdued and muffled like the very ghost of a sound.

The soldiers dug open spaces to give light, outside the stained-glass windows, and through these the evening firelight repeated the gorgeous colors on the snow.

From the path to the mill they dug a branch to the forge, and tunneled a passage to the water, from which they broke the ice every day.

Short as was their supply of corn, they were obliged to feed it to the fowls with a lavish hand as long as the deep snow remained.

This necessity kept them busy shelling the ears by the fire in the warm house, after they had brought them in from the mill or the forge, and half a gunny-sack of corn was thrown out on the snow at the morning and evening feeding.

Since the hut of the old man of the mountain had been made into a forge, the fowls had roosted in the branches of the old chestnuts, and had got on very well, even in the winters that were past.

With full crops, they seemed to be thriving equally well during the severe cold which attended the period of deep snow.

The 15th of January in the new year, which was 1871, was the first of a four days' thaw.

The sun beamed with unusual heat on the mountain, and under his rays the snow rapidly disappeared, and the ground came to light again with its store of dry seeds.

The three-pronged tracks of the fowls were printed everywhere in the soft top-soil, where they scampered about in pursuit of grubs and worms.

On the fourth day the avalanche fell from the great boulder into the Cove, with the usual midwinter crashes and reverberations, which reminded Philip of his narrow escape the winter before.

On the evening of this fourth day the thaw was followed by a light rain, which froze as it fell, and developed into a regular ice-storm during the night.

When the three soldiers looked out on the morning of the 19th, they found their house coated with ice, and the mountain-top a scene of glittering enchantment.

Every tree and bush was coated with a transparent armor of glass.

The lithe limbs of the birches and young chestnuts were bent downward in graceful curves by the weight of the ice, which, under the rays of the rising sun, guttered and scintillated with all the colors of the rainbow.

Every rock and stone had its separate casing, and every weed and blade of grass was stiffened with a tiny shining overcoat.

The stalks on the plantation stood up like a glittering field of pikes.

Despite the difficulty of walking over the uneven ground and the slippery rocks, they made their way, not without occasional falls, to the western side of the plateau to observe the effect in the Cove.

Philip was in raptures over the prismatic variety of colors, picking out and naming the tints with a childish glee and with a subtle appreciation of color that far outran the limited vision of his comrades, and made them think that Sherman Territory had possibly defrauded the world below of a first-rate painter.

As they turned back toward the house, after their first outburst of enthusiasm over the beauties of the ice-storm, Bromley remarked that it was strange they had not been awakened as usual by the crowing of the cocks.

Indeed, the stillness of the hour was remarkable.

It was strange that while they had lain in their bunks after daybreak they had not heard the cocks answering one another from one end of the plateau to the other.

Usually they heard first the clear, ringing note of some knowing old bird burst loud and shrill from under the very window, and then the pert reply of some upstart youngster who had not yet learned to manage his crow drifting faintly back from the rocks to the west; then straightway all the crowers, of all ages and of every condition of shrillness and hoarseness, tried for five mortal minutes to crow one another down; and when one weak, far-away chicken seemed to have got the last word, another would break the stillness, and the strident contest would begin again.

Perhaps they had heard all this and not noticed it.

They were so used to the noise; it was like the ticking of a clock or the measured pounding of the Slow-John; but it was certain that nothing of the kind was going on at present.

In leaving the house they had been so enchanted by the hues of the ice-storm that they now remembered they had not so much as turned their eyes in the direction of the roost.

When they came upon the brow of the hill which overlooked the mill,--which was a silver mill now,--the limbs of the trees which stretched along the bank beyond were crowded with the fowls, at least four hundred of them, sitting still on their perches.

Philip, who fell down in his eagerness, and rolled over on the ice, remarked as he got upon his feet that it was too knowing a flock of birds to leave the sure hold it had on the limbs to come down onto the slippery ground.

As the soldiers came nearer, however, they noticed that their fowls in the sunlight were quite the most brilliantly prismatic objects they had seen; for their red combs and party-colored feathers made a rich showing through the transparent coating of ice which enveloped them like shells and held them fast to the limbs where they sat.

Whether they had been frozen stiff or smothered by the icy envelop, they were unable to determine; but they could see that all the fowls had met with a very beautiful death, except two or three of the toughest old roosters, who had managed to crack the icy winding-sheet about their bills.

One of these, who had more life in him than the others, made a dismal attempt to crow.

Bromley hastened to get the ladder from the mill, and the hatchet, and wherever a living bird was to be seen he put up the ladder regardless of the dead ones, which broke off and fell down, and chipping the ice about its claws, removed it tenderly to the ground.

In the end the three soldiers carried just two apiece, one under each arm, of these tough old veterans into the house, and not daring to bring them near the fire, set them up to thaw gradually against the inner side of the door.

Then they made a pot of hasty-pudding for their own breakfast;

but before they touched it themselves they fed a little of it, steaming hot, to each reviving old bird.

In fact, the poor fowls looked so much like colored-glass images, when tilted against the door, that, fearing at any moment they might topple over and break into fragments, they laid each rooster carefully on his side, where the ice melted by degrees into sloppy pools on the floor.

The oldest of these unhappy survivors had come up the mountain tied to a pack-saddle, and consequently was more than six years old.

He was big of frame and tawny of color, and had long, sharp spurs curved like small powder-horns, and his crow when he was in good health proclaimed him the leader of the flock.

The other five cocks, although but a trifle younger, belonged to the next generation, for they came of the first summer's hatching.

Their plumage was red and black, and their long, sweeping tail-feathers cased in ice would certainly have been snapped off if they had had the least power to move their bodies.

As the ice melted from their heads, they looked about the house with their round red eyes, and otherwise lay quite helpless on their sides, their claws drawn up to their crops, and curved as they had been taken from the limbs.

The soldiers looked on, full of sympathy, and fed their patients now and then with a small portion of warm pudding; and finally, remembering their medicine-chest, which they had never yet had occasion to use, they waited patiently until the ice melted, so that they could handle the fowls without danger of breaking, and then they held each rooster up by the neck and dosed him with a spoonful of whisky and quinine.

Following this prescription they laid the old birds in a row on a warm blanket, sufficiently elevating their heads, and covering them up to their bills, and left them to sleep and sweat after the most approved hospital practice.

And now, having done their duty by the living, they went outside to look at the dead, which were, if possible, more beautiful than ever.

The sun was unusually warm, and by this time everything was dripping and glittering in the light, which was half blinding, and the thin ice was snapping everywhere as the lightened limbs sought to regain their natural positions.

As to the dead fowls, a few had fallen to the ground, but most of them remained rigidly perched on the great limbs, dripping a shower of raindrops upon the ice below.

Here and there, where a few rays of the sun had found passage to a particular limb, a section of the icy coating had turned so that a half-dozen fowls hung heads downward, or the casing of a hen had melted, while her claws were still frozen fast, leaving her to lop over against her neighbor for support.

By afternoon they began to fall off the branches like ripened fruit, and drop on the ground with a thud like apples in an orchard on a windy day.

It was a dismal sound in the ears of the three soldiers, and a sad sight to see the heaps of dead fowls as they accumulated on the ground.

The military training of these young men had taught them to make the most of every reverse, and if possible to turn defeat into victory; and so they fell to work and plucked off a great quantity of soft feathers, and all the next day was spent in skinning the breasts, which they would find some way to cure and make into covers for their beds, or even garments for themselves.

A portion of the carcases they tried out over the fire, and made a brave supply of oil for the mill, and then the poor remains were thrown over the cliff.

The six old roosters remained alive in a crippled and deformed condition, some having three stumpy toes to a foot, and others two or one, on which they wabbled and limped about with molting feathers and abbreviated combs, the most dismal-looking fowls that can be imagined.

The old yellow patriarch was paralyzed as to his legs and thighs, so that he was nearly as helpless as a tailor's goose, and had to be set about and fed like an infant.

For the five red ones Bromley fixed a roost in the corner of the house behind the door, where some of them had to be helped up at night, and where they crowed hoarsely in the morning, over against the window of the stained-glass flag.

Philip, in pursuance of a brilliant idea which he kept to himself, selected a dozen of the new-laid eggs which they happened to have in the house, and put them away in a warm place where no breath of frost could reach them.

When the first warm days of spring came, he made a nest of corn-husks and feathers on a sunny shoulder of rock.

Into this nest he put the eggs he had saved, and covered them with the old paralyzed yellow rooster, who had never been known to move from where he was set down since the night he was frozen on the limb.

The indignant old bird certainly gave Philip a look of remonstrance as he left him in this degrading position; and when Philip came a few hours later to feed him, this cunning old rooster, strengthened perhaps by his outraged feelings, had in some way managed to turn over so that he lay on his side on the rock, his helpless claws extending stiffly over the nest.

As often as he was set back he managed to accomplish the same feat, when if left on the ground he would sit for a week where he was placed, as stolid and immovable as a decoy-duck.

The loss of the fowls had left an abundance of corn for planting; but when the warm days came after this trying winter, it was a queer sight to see the three soldiers walking about the top of the mountain, with their five sad roosters wabbling at their heels.

CHAPTER XXI