e white man!" he declared, with
scorn, and turning his back on his traducer, stalked out of the house.

The settlers, however, paid little attention to his departure. Enoch
scuttled back to the ridge where 'Siah was waiting to hear the news.
There he lay down beside Lot Breckenridge and the two boys talked
earnestly as the men about them smoked or chatted while waiting for the
coming of the Yorkers. Seven hundred seemed a great number to oppose.
The odds would be more than two to one. Despite the ambush which had
been so carefully laid for them, the sheriff and his men might fight as
desperately as the settlers themselves.

"Tell ye what!" whispered Lot to Enoch, "I ain't fixin' to git shot.
Marm didn't want Uncle Jim to let me come, but he said ev'ry gun'd count
this mornin', so she 'lowed I'd hafter. But she says if I git shot
she'll larrup me well."

Enoch chuckled. Although Lot was his senior he was more of a child than
young Harding. The experiences of the last few months had aged Enoch a
good deal. "My mother won't whip me if I git shot; but I mustn't run
into danger, for she wouldn't know what to do without me," he said,
proudly. "Bryce ain't much use yet, you know."

"Zuckers!" exclaimed Lot, "I wisht my marm was like yourn. I ain't got
no father neither; but Uncle Jim don't let me do nothin', an' marm's
allus wearin' out a beech twig on me."

"Guess you do somethin' for it," said Enoch, wisely.

"She'd do it jest th' same if I didn't," declared Lot, yet with perfect
good-nature, as though the Widow Breckenridge's vigorous applications of
the beech wand was a part of existence not to be escaped. "Gran'pap says
I might's well be hung for an ole sheep as a lamb, so in course I do
somethin' for it--mostly."

"If the Yorkers fight we'll hafter stay right here and shoot like the
men," said Nuck, reflectively. "It'll be like the Injin fights my father
and 'Siah were in. I s'pose we'll take trees, an' scatter out so't the
Yorkers can't git up around us here----"

"An' we'll raise the warwhoop an' shoot jest as fast as we kin!"
exclaimed Lot, excitedly. "Crow Wing taught me the warwhoop last year.
An' I know how to scalp, too."

"Oh, I wouldn't do that!" exclaimed Enoch, in horror.

"Umph! Yorkers ain't no better'n Injins, an' I'd scalp an Injin,"
declared Lot, blood-thirstily.

"I wouldn't. My father never did that, an' he was in the war. He said
that was why the Injins warn't no better'n brute-beasts, an'