The Rising Of The Red Man Part 2

"Hadn't you better lie on the couch, Mr. Pasmore?" she said. "You don't look as if you fitted that chair, and it makes you snore so."

She had hardly thought herself capable of such perfidy, but she did not want him to think that she could be altogether blind to his faults. He sat bolt upright in an instant, and stammered out an apology.

But she cut it short. She resented the idea that he should imagine she took sufficient interest in him to be put out by a trifle.

At that very moment there rang out a rifle shot from the ridge just above the wood hard by. It was followed by another at a greater distance.

"There!" said the girl, with a finger pressed against her lower lip, and a look as if of relief on her face.

"Now you will have some work to do. They have come sooner than you expected."

He scanned her face for a moment as if to note how this quick call to grim tragedy affected her. A man of courage himself, he instantly read there possibilities of a very high order and exceptional nerve. There was nothing neurotic about her. Whatever the wayward imaginings of her heart might be, she was a fresh, wholesome and healthy daughter of the prairie, one whose nerves were in accord with her mind and body, one for whom there were no physical or imaginary bogeys.

"It won't frighten you, will it, if we have to turn this kitchen into a sort of shooting gallery?" he asked.

She smiled at the very familiarity with which he handled his subject.

"It will be unpleasant," she replied simply, "but you know I'm accustomed to rifles."

"You don't seem to realise what a rising means amongst savages," he continued. "You must never lose your head, whatever happens, and you must never trust any one outside your own family circle. You must never let yourself fall into their hands; you understand me?"

"I understand," she said, facing him unflinchingly, "and I have my rifle in case of emergencies."

"You are stronger than I thought," he said thankfully, looking at her for the first time with unmistakable admiration.

The rancher entered the room. He had always been noted for his coolness in time of danger. He looked quickly at his daughter, and was wonderfully relieved to see her take the situation so quietly. He kissed her, and said--

"Now, my dear, you'd better get into the other room till this affair is over. There's no need to be alarmed."

How he wished he could have believed what he said!'

"I'm not frightened, dad, a little bit, and I'm going to stay right with" you and load the guns."

"Lower the lamp," cried Pasmore, suddenly.

In another minute each man was glancing along the barrel of his rifle out into the clear moonlight. They faced the entrance to the valley up which came the enemy. It was a dimly-defined half-circle, with a deep-blue, star-studded background. A fringe of trees ran up it, bordering the frozen creek alongside the trail. Stealthily stealing up, they could see a number of dark figures.

Every now and again, from the heights above on either hand, they could see a little jet of fire spurt, and hear the crack of a Winchester as the Mounted Police on the look-out tried to pick off members of the attacking body from their inaccessible point of vantage. But the half-breeds and Indians contented themselves with firing an odd shot in order to warn them off. They would deal with them later. In the meantime they came nearer.

"Ah, St. Croix, old friend! It is my neck you will want to wring, is it? Eh, bien!" And Jacques chuckled audibly.

"Now, hold hard, and wait until I give you the word,"

said Pasmore, quietly.

The rebels, of whom there might be some thirty or forty, now came out into the open and approached the house until they were abreast of the out-buildings. In the clear moonlight they could be seen distinctly, clad in their great buffalo coats, with collars up over their ears, and bearskin and beaver-caps pulled well down.

At a signal from their leader they raised their rifles to send a preparatory volley through the windows.

"_Now then!_" thundered Pasmore.

Four rifles cracked like one, and three rebels dropped where they stood, while a fourth, clapping his hands to the lower part of his body, spun round and round, stamping his feet, reviling the comrades who had brought him there, and blaspheming wildly, while the blood spurted out between his fingers. At the same moment, several bullets embedded themselves in the thick window shutters and in the walls. One only found its way through the dried mud between the logs, and this smashed a bowl that stood on the dresser within two feet of Dorothy's head. She merely glanced at it casually, and picking up the basket of cartridges, prepared to hand them round. With fingers keen and warming to their work, the defenders emptied the contents of their magazines into the astonished half-breeds and Indians. It was more than the latter had bargained for. They made for an open shed that stood hard by, leaving their dead and wounded in the snow.

"What ho! Johnnie c.r.a.paud, you pig!" cried Rory, withdrawing his rifle from the loophole, and applying his mouth to it instead. "It's the Red River jig I've bin dyin' to tache ye for many a long day."

At the same moment Jacques caught sight of his old _bete noire_, Leopold St. Croix the elder, and, not to be outdone by his friend Rory in the exchange of seasonable civilities with the enemy--although, when he came to think of it afterwards, he might as well have shot his man--he was applying his mouth to, his loophole to shout something in the same vein when the quick-eyed Leopold fired a shot at the spot from which the gun-barrel had just been withdrawn. So lucky or good was his aim that he struck the mud in the immediate neighbourhood of the hole, and sent the _debris_ flying into the French-Canadian's mouth. Jacques spent the rest of his time when in the house watching for a long-haired half-breed with a red sash round his waist, who answered to the name of St. Croix the elder.

_Ping, ping, ping, zip--phut--cr-runck!_ and the bullets played a very devil's tattoo upon the walls and windows.

The enemy were still five to one, and if they could only succeed in rus.h.i.+ng in and breaking down the doors, victory would be in their hands. But to do that meant death to so many.

Another half-hour, and the firing still continued, though in a more desultory fas.h.i.+on. It was a strange waiting game, and a grim one, that was being played. The defenders had s.h.i.+fted their positions to guard against surprise.

Douglas had in vain begged his daughter to leave the room and join the women in an inner apartment, but she had pleaded so hard with him that he allowed her to remain.

As for the sergeant, he was outwardly, at least, his old self. He was silent and watchful, showing neither concern nor elation. He moved from one position to another, and never pulled the trigger of his Winchester without making sure of something. With the help of Douglas he had pulled on his fur coat again, as the fire was going out, and he was beginning to feel the cold in his wound.

"I can't make out why Child-of-Light hasn't come up with his men," he said at length, "but, anyhow, he is sure to turn up--"

He paused, listening. Then all in the room heard the _chip-chop_ of an axe as it steadily cut its way through a post of considerable size. The rebels were evidently busy. Suddenly the sound stopped.

"They're preparing for a rush," observed Rory. "What I'm surprisit at is ther riskin' their ugly carcases as they do."

"Sargain Pasmore--Sargean?" cried some-one from the shed.

"Aha! he has recognised your voice," said Jacques. "He is as the fox, that St. Croix."

"Well, what is it?" shouted the sergeant.

What the half-breed had to say rather took the sergeant aback. It was to the effect that unless they surrendered within a few minutes, they would all most a.s.suredly be killed.

Then for the first time that night Sergeant Pasmore betrayed in his voice any feeling that may have animated him.

"Go home, Leopold St. Croix," he cried, "go home, and those with you before it is too late! Go on to the Fort and ask pardon from those in authority, and it may yet be well with you; For as soon as the red-coated soldiers of the Great Queen come--and, take my word for it, they are in number more than the fishes in the Great Lake--you will be shot like a coyote on the prairie, or hanged by the neck, like a bad Indian, on the gallows-tree. That is our answer, Leopold St Croix; you know me of old, and you also know how I have always kept my word."

There was a dead silence for a minute or two, and whilst it lasted one could hear the embers of the dying fire fall into ashes. On a shelf, an eight-day clock ticked ominously; the girl stood with one hand upon her father's shoulder, motionless and impa.s.sive, like some beautiful statue. There was no trace of fear of any impending tragedy to mar the proud serenity of her face. At length the sound of voices came to them from outside. It grew in volume and rose like the angry murmur of the sea.

Pasmore was looking through a crack when the noise of the chopping began again. In another minute there was a crash of falling timber.

The sergeant turned to the girl.

"Miss Douglas," he said, "will you kindly go into the other room for a minute! They have cut down one of the large posts in the shed and are going to make a battering-ram of it so as to smash in the door. Come this way, all of you. Two on either side. That is right.

Fire into them as they charge!"

CHAPTER IV

HARD PRESSED

The half-breeds and Indians, keen and determined as they were to effect an entrance to the house at any costs, were not without considerable foresight and strategy.

But their feint failed, and when they did make a rush with their ram two or three of them were picked off. The survivors dropped the ram, and made a dash across the open for the stable.

Pasmore telling the others to remain at their loopholes, went to a room at the end of the long pa.s.sage, Dorothy following him.