Even Comcomly, the
one-eyed chief, notwithstanding his professed friendship for Mr.
M'Dougal, was strongly suspected of being concerned in this general
combination.
Alarmed at rumors of this impending danger, the Astorians suspended
their regular labor, and set to work, with all haste, to throw up
temporary works for refuge and defense. In the course of a few days they
surrounded their dwelling-house and magazines with a picket fence
ninety feet square, flanked by two bastions, on which were mounted four
four-pounders. Every day they exercised themselves in the use of their
weapons, so as to qualify themselves for military duty, and at night
ensconced themselves in their fortress and posted sentinels, to guard
against surprise. In this way they hoped, even in case of attack, to be
able to hold out until the arrival of the party to be conducted by Mr.
Hunt across the Rocky Mountains, or until the return of the Tonquin. The
latter dependence, however, was doomed soon to be destroyed. Early in
August, a wandering band of savages from the Strait of Juan de Fuca made
their appearance at the mouth of the Columbia, where they came to fish
for sturgeon. They brought disastrous accounts of the Tonquin, which
were at first treated as fables, but which were too sadly confirmed by
a different tribe that arrived a few days subsequently.
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