But, friend, if thee is in fear, thee shall be satisfied there is no danger before thee; it shall never be said that I undertook to lead thee poor women out of mischief only to plunge them into peril.

I will go before thee to the ruin, which thee sees there by the hollow, and reconnoitre." "It needs not," said Roland, who now seeing the cabin of which they were in search close at hand, and perceiving that Peter's uneasiness had subsided, dismissed his own as being groundless.

But notwithstanding, he thought proper, as Nathan advanced, to ride forward himself, and inspect the condition of the building, in which he was about to commit the safety of the being he held most dear, and on whose account, only, he felt the thousand anxieties and terrors he never could have otherwise experienced.
The building was a low cabin of logs, standing, as it seemed, on the verge of an abyss, in which the river could be heard rushing tumultuously, as if among rocks and other obstructions.

It was one of those double cabins so frequently found in the west; that is to say, it consisted of two separate cots, or wings, standing a little distance apart, but united by a common roof; which thus afforded shelter to the open hall, or passage, between them; while the roof, being continued also from the eaves, both before and behind, in pent-house fashion, it allowed space for wide porches, in which, and in the open passage, the summer traveller, resting in such a cabin, will almost always find the most agreeable quarters.
How little soever of common wisdom and discretion the fate of the builders might have shown them to possess, they had not forgotten to provide their solitary dwelling with such defences as were common to all others in the land at that period.

A line of palisades, carelessly and feebly constructed indeed, but perhaps sufficient for the purpose intended, enclosed the ground on which the cabin stood; and this being placed directly in the centre, and joining the palisades at the sides, thus divided the enclosure into two little yards, one in front, the other in the rear, in which was space sufficient for horses and cattle, as well as for the garrison, when called to repel assailants.