There we were, nine of us, in the whaleboats: Verrieul, Natanis, helpless-looking Doc Means, Cap Huff, Whitcomb, Nason, Tom Bickford and that oddly garbed white Indian Joseph Phipps. On the shore stood Nathaniel and Zelph; and so far as we could see, whatever fleet was built would have to be built by the eleven of us.

Except for the timbers of the one vessel we had brought with us, we had nothing with which to work: nothing, that is to say, except a sawmill without logs, an iron-foundry without iron or workmen, a gristmill without corn, and space for shipyards without carpenters, unless Nathaniel and Tom Bickford and myself should be counted as carpenters, and perhaps Zelph, who had worked a little around ships.

We had no canvas, no nails, no cordage. Barring the hatchets in our belts, we had no tools—no felling axes: no grindstones to keep them sharp: no adzes or hammers. We had no oars, no sailors, no money. And in spite of all that, we pointed out to each other likely locations for stocks—stocks for the vessels that must somehow be constructed out of God knew what.

When my whaleboat slid into the shallows, Nathaniel and Zelph hauled her bow to land. “Zelph’s got two axes,” Nathaniel said. “He thinks maybe he can find more. A man came over from Albany this morning to say there’d be thirty carpenters here tomorrow. He’s up at the barn, finding places for ’em to sleep.”

Cap Huff waded ashore, his keg of rum cradled in his arms. “Thirty carpenters?” he asked. “Thirty carpenters from where?”

“From Albany,” Nathaniel said.

Cap Huff shook his head ominously. “Yorkers! I better see about getting us some place to live: some place where those Yorkers can’t steal everything we got!”

He hurried away with his keg of rum, and with him went Natanis and Joe Phipps to hunt food for our suppers; while the rest of us went to work.

By sunset that evening, the timbers we had brought were stacked on either side of a rough staging hacked from the slopes of Wood Creek with Zelph’s two axes and our tomahawks, and lashed in place with wattape. We had cut blocks and placed them at the proper height and inclination. On these we had set the keel of the St. John’s vessel, erected her stem and sternpost and made six ladders to let us start work on the following morning with no loss of time.

Nathaniel told me enough about Ellen to let me know she was comfortable in a three-room house on Skene’s property, with a farmer and his wife. He might have told me more if I’d pressed him; but this I wouldn’t do, for I’d made up my mind that her likes and dislikes were too violent and stubborn for me, and that the less I saw of her, the better off I’d be.