ed out through the doorway, striking him roughly and
holding his elbows behind his back.

A shout went up from the waiting lines, and muskets and clubs were
waved in the air. The Captain stepped forward briskly with head erect,
scorning to glance at the braves who walked on either side. He knew
that they would not kill him in the gantlet; they would save him for
the fire. He had passed through this once, he could do it again,
conscious that every moment brought nearer the chance of a rescue by
the Big Throat. Perhaps twenty paces had been covered, and his
guardians were prodding him and trying to force him into a run, when
he heard a shout from the priest, and then the sounds of a struggle at
the hut. He turned his head, but a rude hand knocked it back. Again he
heard the priest's voice, and this time, with it, a woman's scream.

The Captain hesitated for a second. The warriors prodded him again,
and before they could raise their arms he had jerked loose, snatched a
musket from one, and swinging it around his head, sent the two to the
ground, one with a cracked skull. Before those in the lines could
fairly see what had happened, he was running toward the hut with two
captured muskets and a knife. In front of the hut the three other
Indians were struggling with Father Claude, who was fighting in a
frenzy, and the maid. She was hanging back, and one redskin had
crushed her two wrists together in his hand and was dragging her.

Menard was on them with a leap. They did not see him until a musket
whirled about their ears, and one man fell, rolling, at the maid's
feet.

"Back into the hut!" he said roughly, and she obeyed. As he turned to
aid the priest he called after her, "Pile up the logs, quick!"

She understood, and with the strength that came with the moment, she
dragged the logs to the door.

Menard crushed down the two remaining Indians as he would have crushed
wild beasts, without a glance toward the mob that was running at him,
without a thought for the gash in his arm, made first by an arrow at
La Gallette and now reopened by a knife thrust. The Father, too, was
wounded, but still he could fight. There was but a second more. The
Captain threw the four muskets into the hut, and after them the
powder-horns and bullet-pouches which he had barely time to strip from
the dead men. Then he crowded the priest through the opening above the
logs, and came tumbling after. Another second saw the logs piled close
against