and by short excursions within certain prescribed limits along the river
side, contrived to shoot and fish enough to get through the day, and
improve the meagre fare of his mess-table. Malone never appeared before
dinner--his late sittings at night requiring all the following day to
recruit him for a new attack upon the rum bottle.

Now, although his seeing so little of his brother officer was any thing
but unpleasant to O'Flaherty, yet the ennui of such a life was gradually
wearing him, and all his wits were put in requisition to furnish
occupation for his time. Never a day passed without his praying ardently
for an attack from the enemy; any alternative, any reverse, had been a
blessing compared with his present life. No such spirit, however, seemed
to animate the Yankee troops; not a soldier was to be seen for miles
around, and every straggler that passed the Fort concurred in saying that
the Americans were not within four day's march of the frontier.

Weeks passed over, and the same state of things remaining unchanged,
O'Flaherty gradually relaxed some of his strictness as to duty; small
foraging parties of three and four being daily permitted to leave the
Fort for a few hours, to which they usually returned laden with wild
turkeys and fish--both being found in great abundance near them.

Such was the life of the little garrison for two or three long summer
months--each day so resembling its fellow, that no difference could be
found.

As to how the war was faring, or what the aspect of affairs might be,
they absolutely knew nothing. Newspapers never reached them; and whether
from having so much occupation at head-quarters, or that the difficulty
of sending letters prevented, their friends never wrote a line; and thus