steel, while Henri
Corlier shot the bolts into place.

Huddled in white groups were the women, some of them already raising
their voices in weeping, others silent with the training of the women
of the wilderness. The men faced each other with lips drawn tight and
breath that came swiftly. Prix Laroux, his dark eyes cool and sharp,
looked swiftly over the populace as they stood, for with that first shot
every man in Fort de Seviere had rushed to the gate, and in that first
moment of getting breath he calculated their strength and their ability.

A leader born himself, he was looking for a leader among McElroy's men;
but, with that intrepid factor himself gone and Edmonton Ridgar also,
there was nowhere a man with the signs of leadership upon him.

Through Prix's mind this went while they stood listening to the
death-wail that was beginning to rise from the tepees without.

Then he quietly took command, knowing himself to be best fitted.

"Corlier," he said quietly, "leave the gate to Cif Bordoux. Take one man
and get to the southwest bastion. You, Gifford," turning to that young
clerk who worked in the sorting-room, "man the northwest. Garcon and
Dupre will take the forward two. The rest will stand ready with guns and
ammunition along the four walls and at the gates. We know not what will
transpire."

As if their factor spoke, the men of De Seviere turned to obey, feeling
that strange compelling which causes men to follow one man to death on
the field of battle, and which is surely the gift of God.

Out of his shaking arms Marc Dupre loosed Maren, the trembling lessening
as the danger passed. That sight of the defenceless girl among the
Indians had shaken him like a leaf in the wind, had nerved his arms with
iron, had worked in him both with strength and weakness.

Now he looked into her eyes and said never a word, for once again he saw
that they were dazed and void of knowledge.

As he set her upon her own strength, she swayed. Her eyes went round the
hushed groups of faces with wild searching. At last they found the face
of her leader, and clung there, dark and dull.

"Prix!" she cried. "Prix! Open the gate!"

"I cannot, Maren," he said quietly; "'twould be but madness."

"But they are without!"

All horror was in the cry.

"They are among the Indians!"

"Aye,--and may the good God have mercy on them!"

Laroux hastily made the sign of the cross.

"We must guard the post, Maren."

"But--" She turn