o enter. It would be ruin to open the
gate."

He looked around him. Hide and his party were still a goodly distance
away. He could hear above the voices of the storm the rousing cheers of
the Brownies as they pressed more and more closely upon Heady, who was
doggedly giving way, disputing every inch of ground. Whirlit, Whisk and
Keener had left him, at the beck of Madam Breeze, and now joined that
lusty Elf in their assaults upon Fort Spinder.

"What is done, must be done quickly," thought Spite. "May all the furies
seize the old monster! She has broken a breach in the roof. See! the
garrison, aided by the women and children, are doing bravely. There;
that villain Keener has cut his way to the inside of Fort Agalena. And
there go Whisk and Whirlit after him. How the walls sway back and forth!
The roof bulges upward. The reprobates! They are trying to break through
the roof. If they do that and Madam Breeze gets in, all is lost; away
will go the whole building with a crash. What shall I do? If we could
only anchor the roof! But there's no ballast about. Hide and his men are
far away yet. Confusion seize them! Why aren't they here now?"

It was a trying moment for the interests of the Pixies. All seemed to
turn upon the fate of the fort; and that to depend upon one person. But
that person was Spite the Spy, and he had never yet been wholly without
resources. Hopeless as the case appeared, he was equal to the emergency.
He would save the fort if it could be saved! He jumped from the weed-top
which he had mounted for better observation, and plunged into the midst
of the ruins of the camp. He stopped before a pebble almost the size of
his own body.

"That will do, I think," he muttered. He seized the stone, twisted a
cable around it, and dragged it away toward the fort. It was but a
moment's work to climb upon an overhanging weed, fasten the cable to a
branch and swing the stone over upon the roof. The canvas sheet sank
downward under the pebble's weight. Spite watched it with keen interest.
The elastic stuff swayed upward and downward several times, and seemed
about to settle firmly, when Whirlit leaped upward against it with his
strong shoulders. The pebble flew off the roof, spinning through the air
close to the head of the Pixie chief, who looked on from his perch among
the leaves.

"Failure!" muttered Spite.

"Try again, old fellow!" shouted Whirlit from the inside, where he was
capering in high good humor above