"There is no time to be lost.

Let all the axemen fell trees and lay them end to end to make a breastwork.
The rest of you range the waggons in a line behind, and lay the boats up in the intervals.

Carry the line from the swamp, on the right there, to the slope of the hill." In an instant, the camp was a scene of animation, and the forest resounded with the strokes of the axe, and the shouts of the men as they dragged the waggons to their position.
"I was a fool," Johnson exclaimed, "not to fortify the camp before; but who could have supposed that the French would have come down from Crown Point to attack us here!" In a few minutes terror-stricken men, whites and Indians, arrived at a run through the forest, and reported that they had been attacked and surprised by a great force in the forest, that Hendrick and Colonel Williams were killed, and numbers of the men shot down.

They reported that all was lost; but the heavy roll of fire, in the distance, contradicted their words; and showed that a portion of the column, at least, was fighting sternly and steadily, though the sound indicated that they were falling back.
Two hundred men had already been despatched to their assistance, and the only effect of the news was to redouble the efforts of the rest.
Soon parties arrived carrying wounded; but it was not until an hour and a half after the engagement began, that the main body of the column were seen marching, in good order, back through the forest.
By this time the hasty defences were well-nigh completed, and all the men were employed in cutting down the thick brushwood outside, so as to clear the ground as far as possible, and so prevent the enemy from stealing up, under shelter, to the felled trees.
Three cannon were planted, to sweep the road that descended through the pines.

Another was dragged up to the ridge of the hill.