“As good as that-yes, quite as good as that.  I can see, plainly, that Peter has some heavy mystery on his mind; sooner, or later, we shall learn it.  When it does come out, the world may be prepared to learn the whole history of the Ten Tribes!”

“In my judgment,” observed the corporal, “that chief could give the history of twenty, if he was so minded,”

“There were but ten of them, brother Flint—­but ten; and of those ten he could give us a full and highly interesting account.  One of these days, we shall hear it all; in the mean time, it may be well enough to turn one of these houses into some sort of a garrison.”

“Let it, then, be Castle Meal,” said le Bourdon; “surely, if any one is to be defended and fortified in this way, it ought to be the women.  You may easily palisade that hut, which is so much stronger than this, and so much smaller.”

With this compromise, the work went on.  The corporal dug a trench four feet deep, encircling the “castle,” as happy as a lord the whole time; for this was not the first time he had been at such work, which he considered to be altogether in character, and suitable to his profession.  No youthful engineer, fresh from the Point, that seat of military learning to which the republic is even more indebted for its signal successes in Mexico, than to the high military character of this population-no young aspirant for glory, fresh from this useful school, could have greater delight in laying out his first bastion, or counter-scarp, or glacis, than Corporal Flint enjoyed in fortifying Castle Meal.  It will be remembered that this was the first occasion he was ever actually at the head of the engineering department Hitherto, it had been his fortune to follow; but now it had become his duty to lead.  As no one else, of that party, had ever been employed in such a work on any previous occasion, the corporal did not affect to conceal the superior knowledge with which he was overflowing.  Gershom he found a ready and active assistant; for, by this time, the whiskey was well out of him; and he toiled with the greater willingness, as he felt that the palisades would add to the security of his wife and sister.  Neither did Parson Amen disdain to use the pick and shovel; for, while the missionary had the fullest reliance in the fact that the red men of that region were the descendants of the children of Israel, he regarded them as a portion of the chosen people who were living under the ban of the divine displeasure, and as more than usually influenced by those evil spirits, whom St. Paul mentions as the powers of the air.  In a word, while the good missionary had all faith in the final conversion and restoration of these children of the forests, he did not overlook the facts of their present barbarity, and great propensity to scalp.  He was not quite as efficient as Gershom, at this novel employment, but a certain inborn zeal rendered him both active and useful.  As for the