emy from a further assault, and also as a
signal to some of the soldiers who were at a distance, hunting. And all
this time within the fort there was the shrill sound of the women and
children wailing and screaming. Madeleine, on guard at a loophole, gave
a stern order, "Be quiet, or your screams will encourage the enemy!"
Then with far sighted eyes she saw a canoe gliding up to the
landing-place, the one that she had been looking for in that care-free
hour which now seemed years ago; the canoe in which was her friend who
was trying to reach the fort with his family. Knowing how near the
Indians were, Madeleine was terrified lest the visitors should be killed
before her eyes, and she begged the soldiers to go to their aid, but
they were not brave enough to do it. She must go herself. With a hasty
command to Laviolette to keep watch at the gate while she was gone, she
ran out alone down to the landing-place. She afterwards said, "I thought
that the savages would suppose it to be a ruse to draw them towards the
fort, in order to make a rush upon them. They did suppose so, and thus I
was able to save my friends, the Fontaine family. When they were landed
I made them all march up to the fort before me in full sight of the
enemy. We put so bold a face on that they thought they had more to fear
than we had." Thus the settlers and their plucky young escort gained the
shelter of the fort, and Madeleine, quite encouraged by this addition to
the number of her forces, at once ordered that whenever an Indian came
in sight, he should at once be fired on, which order was faithfully
obeyed, and in watching and firing, the hours of the long day wore away.

After sunset a fierce northeast wind came up, accompanied with a flurry
of snow and hail, and as the little band in the fort heard the howling
of the wind they looked at one another with pale and terrified faces,
fearing that the Iroquois, who were still lurking near, would be able,
under cover of the noise and darkness of the storm, to climb into the
fort, and all would be lost. Whitest of all was Madeleine, the young
commander, but she gathered her troop of six persons around her, and
said stoutly, "God has saved us to-day from the hands of our enemies,
but we must take care not to fall into their snares to-night. As for me,
I want you to see that I am not afraid. I will take care of the fort
with an old man of eighty and another who never fired a gun, and you,
Pierre Fontaine, with