Night came, thick and black, and to the more timid full of omens and presages.
The forest sank away in the darkness, nothing was visible fifty yards from the palisade and in the log houses few lights burned.

The little colony, but a pin point of light, was alone in the vast and circling wilderness.

One of the greatest tests of courage to which the human race has ever been subjected was at hand.

In all directions the forest curved away, hundreds of miles.

It would be a journey of days to find any other of their own kind, they were hemmed in everywhere by silence and loneliness, whatever happened they must depend upon themselves, because there was none to bring help.