ly ray of light visible was behind me, and
shone from the window of Flora's room. As I turned from a brief
contemplation of it, I saw a man passing and hailed him. He proved to be
Baptiste.

"Why was I not wakened?" I demanded sharply. "Here is the night upon us,
and I wished to be up at noon."

"Mr. Menzie's orders, sir," he replied. "He said you were not to be
disturbed."

I questioned Baptiste further, and learned that there had been no alarm
during the day, and that not an Indian had shown himself. He also
relieved my mind concerning the preparations for holding the factor's
house.

"They moved everything in," he said; "food and blankets, all the powder
and ball, four sledges, and the wounded men."

"And the dead, Baptiste?"

"They are buried, sir--under the snow."

"Ah, then no time has been wasted," said I. "If the worst comes we shall
be ready--"

"There is nothing more to be done, Carew," interrupted a voice at my
elbow. "No step that prudence or forethought could dictate has been
omitted."

The speaker was Captain Rudstone, who had approached unperceived.

"Has your sleep refreshed you?" he added.

"Very much," I replied. "I feel fit for another stretch of fighting.
What is the situation now?"

"The calm before the storm, to my mind," he declared. "Sentries are
posted to command a view from every side of the fort. Both towers will
be abandoned at the first alarm, and all the men will rush to the
quarter whence it comes, those are the general orders. If the redskins
prove too strong for us, we will retreat to the factor's house."

"Ay, and hold it," said I. "The place is impregnable, Rudstone!"

"That remains to be seen," he answered. "Go and get some supper, Carew,
while you have the chance."

"Then you think the attack is imminent?"

"Yes, it may come at any moment."

"But Baptiste tells me the Indians have made no sign all day."

"True enough," assented the captain, "and that's the worst of it. They
are hatching some deep-laid deviltry, be sure! I have my suspicions, and
I communicated them to Menzies. He agrees with me that the attack will
probably burst upon us in the form of a--"

He never finished the sentence. The words were stifled on his lips by a
tremendous explosion that seemed to shake the very ground, and rattled
and thundered far away into the heart of the wilderness. A crash of
falling debris followed, and then the night rang with shrill clamor and
blood-curdling whoops.