The Indians, not content with the fires, were providing themselves with good shelters, and to every one it indicated a long siege.

There was neither snow, nor hail, but clear, bitter, intense cold, and again the timbers of the blockhouse and outbuildings popped as they contracted under the lower temperature.
The horses were pretty well sheltered from the cold, and Willet, with his usual foresight, had suggested before the siege closed in that a great deal of grass be cut for them, though should the French and Indians hang on for a month or two, they would certainly become a problem.

Food for the men would last indefinitely, but a time might arrive when none would be left for the horses.
"If the pinch comes," said Willet, "we know how to relieve it." "How ?" asked Colden.
"We'll eat the horses." Colden made a wry face.
"It's often been done in Europe," said the hunter.

"At the famous sieges of Leyden and Haarlem, when the Dutch held out so long against the Spanish, they'd have been glad enough to have had horseflesh." "I look ahead again," said Robert, hiding a humorous gleam in his eyes from Colden, "and I see a number of young men behind a palisade which they have held gallantly for months.

They come mostly from Philadelphia and they call themselves Quakers.