Standish
in Sokwenna's cabin; they were accepting a desperate gamble, believing
that Alan Holt would find a safe place for her, while he fought until
he fell. It was the finesse of clever scheming, nothing less than
murder, and he, by this combination of circumstances and plot, was the
victim marked for death.

The shooting had stopped, and the silence that followed it held a
significance for Alan. They were giving him an allotted time in which to
care for those under his protection. A trap-door was in the floor of
Sokwenna's cabin. It opened into a small storeroom and cellar, which in
turn possessed an air vent leading to the outside, overlooking the
ravine. In the candle-glow Alan saw the door of this trap propped open
with a stick. Sokwenna, too, was clever. Sokwenna had foreseen.

Crouched under the window, he looked at the girls. Keok, with a rifle in
her hand, had crept to the foot of the ladder leading up to the attic,
and began to climb it. She was going to Sokwenna, to load for him. Alan
pointed to the open trap.

"Quick, get into that!" he cried. "It is the only safe place. You can
load there and hand out the guns."

Mary Standish looked at him steadily, but did not move. She was
clutching a rifle in her hands. And Nawadlook did not move. But Keok
climbed steadily and disappeared in the darkness above.

"Go into the cellar!" commanded Alan. "Good God, if you don't--"

A smile lit up Mary's face. In that hour of deadly peril it was like a
ray of glorious light leading the way through blackness, a smile sweet
and gentle and unafraid; and slowly she crept toward Alan, dragging the
rifle in one hand and holding the little pistol in the other, and from
his feet she still smiled up at him through the dishevelment of her
shining hair, and in a quiet, little voice that thrilled him, she said,
"I am going to help you fight."

Nawadlook came creeping after her, dragging another rifle and bearing an
apron heavy with the weight of cartridges.

And above, through the darkened loophole of the attic window, Sokwenna's
ferret eyes had caught the movement of a shadow in the gray mist, and
his rifle sent its death-challenge once more to John Graham and his men.
What followed struck a smile from Mary's lips, and a moaning sob rose
from her breast as she watched the man she loved rise up before the open
window to face the winged death that was again beating a tattoo against
the log walls of the cabin.

CHAPTER XXV