The charred timbers of Fort Ann stood in the narrowest part of the valley. “Here’s the place to start,” I whispered to Doc. “There’s a score of trees yonder, on the far side of the creek, that’ll reach all the way across the stream, when they’re felled. We’ll lay down a fence, right here: five trees across the creek and a dozen criss-crossed over the road, with their tops locked together. Then if the British come back, they’ll make such a noise getting past the barricade that we’ll be able to slip away.”

“What if they use Injuns?”

“That’s a chance we’ve got to take,” I said.

We picked out a tree that could be dropped across the road beside the creek, peeled off most of our clothes, sharpened our axes and went to work. It wasn’t much of a tree, and in three minutes we dumped it where we wanted it. We moved back twenty feet and dropped two more, felling them so they lay across the first tree, at right angles to it. Their tops completely filled the road. We moved up the hillslope and cut into a tall pine, three feet in diameter at the height of my shoulder. When it came smashing down, its top reached to the bank of Wood Creek. The bulk of its branches lay jammed into the first three trees we had cut, forming a tangle through which a rabbit couldn’t have passed. Its heavy trunk extended up the slope. No single wall, built by human hands, could have barred us more effectively from those who might approach by land from the direction of Skenesboro.

We listened for sounds from the far side of our abatis, but heard nothing, only the brawling and muttering of the creek and the furry stirring of the breeze in the high pines.

“Come on,” Doc said. “Let’s chop down something that’s got some size to it before we get chilled.”

We dropped a medium-sized pine so that it spanned the creek, giving us a foot-bridge on which we crossed. Opposite the barricade we had first made stood a tree that may have been five feet in thickness at its base. It was a beautiful tree, without a blemish. I could almost have got a schooner from it; or a whole house; or wainscoting fit for a king’s palace. Doc took one side of it and I the other. At the end of a few minutes I felt it sigh and shiver, as does any big tree when an axe has reached its heart. Doc took our muskets and moved upstream, while I finished the job. The tree came down with a walloping, splintering crash. It seemed endless, lying there, its top on the far side of the creek, wedged among the bristling tops of those we had first felled.