watching me in helpless confidence; with these frightened
children gathering around me, looking up into my face, reaching
trustfully for my clenched hands?
In an agony of indecision I turned to the door and gazed down the road,
an instant only, then leaped back and slammed the great oaken portal,
shooting the bars.
Destiny had decided; Fate had cut the knot!
"Every man to a loop!" I called out steadily. "Wemple, take your sons
to the east room; Klein, you and Farris and Klock take the west and
south; Warren, look out for the west. They may try to fire the wooden
water-leader. Mrs. Farris, see that the tubs of water are ready; and
you, Mrs. Warren, take the women and children to the cellar and be
ready to dip up buckets of water from the cistern."
Silence; a trample on the stairs as the men ran to their posts; not a
cry, not a whimper from the children.
I climbed the stairs, and lying at full length beside the loop, cocked
my rifle, and peered out. Almost instantly I saw a man dodge into
Klein's house too quickly for me to fire. Presently the interior of the
house reddened behind the windows; a thin haze of smoke appeared as by
magic, hanging like a curtain above the roof. Then, with a crackling
roar that came plainly to my ears, the barn behind the house was buried
in flame, seeming almost to blow up in one huge puff of bluish-white
smoke.
I heard Wemple's ancient firelock explode, followed by the crack of his
sons' rifles, and I saw an Indian running across the pasture.
Klein's house was now curtained with blackish smoke; Wemple's, too, had
begun to burn, the roof all tufted with clear little flames, that
seemed to give out no smoke in the sunshine. An Indian darted across
the door-yard, and leaped into the road, but at the stunning report of
Warren's rifle he stopped, dropping his gun, and slowly sank, face
downward, in the dust.
Then I heard the barking scalp-yelp break out, and a storm of bullets
struck the tavern, leaving along the forest's edge a low wall of brown
vapor, which lingered as though glued to the herbage; and through it,
red as candle-flames in fog, the spirting flicker of the rifles played,
and the old tavern rang with leaden hail. Suddenly the fusillade
ceased. Far away I heard a ranger's whistle calling, calling
persistently.
Wemple's barn was now burning fiercely; the mill, too, had caught fire,
and an ominous ruddy glare behind Warren's windows brightened and
brightened.
Be
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