musket desperately. Although the
tears were running down his face, he was made of the stuff which holds
the soldier, though frightened, to his post.

"Go down yourself, mother," Enoch said, recovering his presence of mind
and speaking calmly now. "I will follow you and drop the stone into
place. But first I want to look out----"

He ran to the loophole, through which the smoke was now pouring. But
after a moment there was a break in the cloud and he saw the group of
frightened Yorkers plainly. They stood not many rods away and poking his
rifle through the hole, he aimed at the villainous Halpen and, pulling
the trigger, ran back to the hearth before the echo of the shot died
away. Down the ladder he darted, dropping the heavy hearthstone into
place, and leaving the cabin which for so many years had been their
home, to be consumed above their heads. But his heart sank when he found
how closely the six packed the tiny room and realized how little air
reached them down here in the earth.

CHAPTER XII

BACKWOODS JUSTICE

At daybreak on this very morning when the Yorkers attacked the Harding
place, 'Siah Bolderwood returning from the direction of Old Ti, suddenly
came upon a little glade on the bank of the Walloomscoik Creek. With the
instinct long gained by his life as hunter and woodsman, he never
crossed an open space in the forest without examining it well. In this
glade he saw, at first glance, the signs of recent occupancy. The
smouldering ashes of a campfire and the marks on the creek bank told him
that a canoe party had camped there during the night and that they had
been under way but shortly. Making sure that they were now out of sight
he more closely examined the spot. The party numbered at least half a
dozen, and there had been two canoes. He had come up the creek bank
himself; therefore, not having seen the strangers, they had gone on
ahead of him. Five miles or so up the stream lay the ox-bow at which his
old friend Jonas Harding settled when he came into the Disputed Grounds,
and where the widow and her brood now lived. After examining the camp he
quickened his step toward the Harding place.

A mile further on, however, he heard the stroke of paddles and the sound
of men's voices. He would have gone to the fringed river bank and peered
out upon the stream had not a figure suddenly risen before him as though
from the ground itself and barred his way. "How d'ye, Crow Wing!" he
exclaimed, yet show