Half the men were set to hunting and fishing, half to chopping logs for
the new fort built in the usual fashion, with high palisades, a main
barracks a hundred feet long in the centre, three stories high, with
trap-doors connecting each story, cabins and hutches all round the
inside of the palisades. Lanterns hung at the masthead of the sloops
to recall the brigades each night; for Captain Cleveland, a Boston
trader anchored in the harbor, forewarned Baranof of the Indians'
treacherous character, more dangerous now when demoralized by the
rivalry of white traders, and in possession of the civilized man's
weapons. Free distribution of liquor by unscrupulous sea-captains did
not mend {332} matters. Cleveland reported that the savages had so
often threatened to attack his ship that he no longer permitted them on
board; concealing the small number of his crew by screens of hides
round the decks, trading only at a wicket with cannon primed and
muskets bristling through the hides above the taffrail. He warned
Baranof's hunters not to be led off inland bear hunting, for the bear
hunt might be a Sitkan Indian in decoy to trap the hunters into an
ambush.
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