t served as banquette to bring him within reach of the
loophole, placed so high in the hope that a chance shot entering might
range only among the rafters,--"How quick you are! How you help me!"

The thunderous crash of the double volley of the settlers firing twice,
by the aid of their feminine auxiliaries, to every volley of the
Indians, overwhelmed for the moment the tumult of the fiendish whoops in
the wild darkness outside, and then the fusillade of the return fire,
like leaden hail, rattled against the tough log walls of the station.

"Are you afraid, Nan?" he asked, as he received again the loaded weapon
from her hand.

"_Afraid?_--No!" exclaimed Peninnah Penelope Anne Mivane--hardly taller
than the ramrod with which she was once more driving the charge home.

He saw her face, delicate and blonde, in the vivid white flare from the
rifle as he thrust it through the loophole and fired. "You think I can
take care of you?" he demanded, while the echo died away, and a lull
ensued.

"I know you can," she replied, adjusting with the steady hand of an
expert the patching over the muzzle of the discharged weapon in the
semi-obscurity.

A blood-curdling shout came from the Cherokees in the woods with a
deeper roar of musketry at closer quarters; and a hollow groan within
the blockhouse, where there was a sudden commotion in the dim light,
told that some bullet had found its billet.

"They are coming to the attack again--Hand me the
rifle--quick--quick--Oh, Nan, how you help me! How brave you are--I love
you! I love you!"

"Look out now for a flash in the pan!" Peninnah Penelope Anne merely
admonished him.

Being susceptible to superstition and a ponderer on omens, Ralph Emsden
often thought fretfully afterward on the double meaning of these words,
and sought to displace them in their possible evil influence on his
future by some assurance more cheerful and confident. With this view he
often earnestly beset her, but could secure nothing more pleasing than a
reference to the will of her grandfather and a protestation to abide by
his decision in the matter.

Now Peninnah Penelope Anne's grandfather was deaf. His was that hopeless
variety of the infirmity which heard no more than he desired. His
memory, however, was unimpaired, and it may be that certain
recollections of his own experiences in the past remained with him,
making him a fine judge of the signs of the present. Emsden, appalled by
the necessity of shri