d dumped
water on them.

Cooper grinned. "De Marion built well. The ground floor's stone and the
roof is covered with sheet lead. Injuns'll soon tire of this game."

The fire arrows became fewer. They stopped coming, and there was a
breathless silence in which time did not seem to pass. Then Cooper led
the way back down to the ground floor.

High-pitched Indians whoops sent a new chill through Nicole.

A rifle went off--Tom, at the gunport to the left of the front door.

"Hold your fire, boy!" Cooper called, watching from the other side of
the doorway. "Let them come."

Nicole went to stand beside her oldest son again and look out. The front
gate of the palisade was open and Indians were streaming in. Brown
bodies painted with yellow and red and black slashes, arms waving
knives, clubs, tomahawks, bows and arrows, rifles. More were tumbling
out the front door of the inn. A flicker of red light caught her eye.
Flames shot out the open front door of the fur shop. They were burning
all those valuable pelts. Raoul would lose a lot today.

And not just money, she thought, recalling burning Victoire. Money would
be the least of Raoul's loss. To her surprise she felt a moment's sorrow
for the brother she had come to despise.

Twenty or more Indians came through the gate carrying a huge black log,
its front end afire. The rest of the Indians gathered around them. All
together they ran at the blockhouse door, the glowing, smoking tip of
the log in the forefront.

"Everybody get as far away from this damned cannon as you can!" Frank
shouted. People scrambled away, leaving an empty space around the
six-pounder in the center of the floor. Some ran into the strong room
and some scurried upstairs. Only Cooper, Frank and Pamela Russell stood
by the cannon. Nicole stayed where she was, moving her body so that she
was between Tom and the cannon.

_Whatever happens will be what God wants to happen._

"Open the door!" Cooper ordered.

Tom Slattery, the blacksmith, swung the door open, and Nicole saw some
of the Indians hesitate, then rush forward. She wondered if they could
see the cannon in the shadowy interior of the blockhouse.

"Shoot!" yelled Cooper.

Carefully, deliberately, Pamela Russell lowered her candle to the
cannon's touchhole.

"Fire in the hole!" Cooper called out.

Nicole heard the sizzle of gunpowder from where she stood.

The boom of the cannon hit Nicole's skull like a mallet. A huge white
cloud be