HOT WORK.
I was standing so near that the three daring redskins all but fell upon me. As I dodged quickly back, one let fly a tomahawk. I felt it graze my head, and the next instant I had smashed the skull of the howling wretch with the butt end of my musket. Already three more were over the stockade, and the five fell upon our men with desperate fury. The yelling and whooping, the cries of the wounded, made an infernal din. A comrade on my left was shot in the mouth, and dropped writhing to the ground; a half-breed at my very side clapped a hand to his arm and spun round.
But by this time the scrimmage had been seen at a distance, and there was a rally to the spot. Two savages were clubbed to death, and a third fell by Captain Rudstone’s musket. I shot a fourth through the chest, but in spite of the wound, he made at me, and I had to settle him with a blow above the ear.
For one Indian that was slain, however, two fresh ones scrambled into the inclosure. There were as agile as cats, and as daring as panthers. With bullet and tomahawk they assailed us, and we were soon hard-pressed all along the line. There was fierce fighting on the north as well, and so no help could be spared from that quarter. Indeed, I began to fear that the fort would be taken by sheer numbers; and even while I was engaged hand to hand with the painted fiends, I was meditating what steps to take to save Flora.
But when the situation was most critical, several things befell to turn the tide. At great risk a couple of plucky fellows loaded the howitzer—it had been discharged once—and thrusting the muzzle out of one of the boles provided for that purpose, they fired it point-blank into the mass of savages who were coming on to the assault. At the same moment a swivel gun roared a few yards to the left, and the two tremendous reports were followed by shrill yells of agony and consternation.
This appeared to check the rush from without, and of a sudden the top of the stockade showed empty against the skyline. Seeing this, we took heart, and attacked the savages who were inside more furiously than ever. Just then we were joined by half a dozen men from the watch-tower and by four others led by Griffith Hawke. The redskins wavered, fell back, and bolted in panic for their lives. Ten of them we shot down or clubbed, and as many succeeded in scrambling over the stockade. It had been a close shave, but the fort was saved for the present.
“Blaze away, or they’ll be in again!” cried the factor. “Give them a steady volley!”
With ringing cheers we sprang to the loopholes, and fired as fast as we could load and empty. A vigorous fusillade was returned at first, but it soon slackened and straggled, and the whooping of the savages ceased entirely.
It was the same on the north side of the fort. The Indians had not retreated, but they were repulsed and disheartened, and were in no mood for further sacrifice. They lay hidden behind drifted snow and stumps, taking wary shots whenever they fancied they saw an opportunity.
Now we had time to breathe—time to take a welcome spell of rest after our hard struggle. We were all parched and powder grimed, and some of us were bandaging slight wounds. And the victory had cost us dear. Three sorely-hurt men had been carried off to the hospital, and among the dozen or more slain savages who lay in ghastly attitudes on the trampled, blood-soaked snow were four of our plucky defenders, who would never lift musket again. It was a hideous, revolting sight, and the raging storm, the murky gray of the night, lent an added horror to it.
The semi-lull continued, and little attention was paid to the straggling fire of the Indians, though sharp eyes were watching from the tower. Griffith Hawke came up to where I was leaning, breathing hard, on the barrel of my musket.
“Thank God you are all right, my boy!” he said hoarsely. “I never expected those devils would get over the stockade. It was Heaven’s mercy that enabled us to drive them off; but we have lost heavily.”
“Severely, indeed,” I assented. “And so have the Indians. I doubt if they will try that game again. And what was the result at the north side, sir? I believe you had desperate fighting there at the same time.”
“Not so bad as here,” the factor replied; “but pretty nearly. The Indians broke in, but our fellows were getting the best of it when I left to help you. Menzies was in charge, and—ah! here he comes now.”
The big Scotchman was loading his musket as he approached. He limped badly—a gunstock had struck him on the thigh—and he had a flesh wound in his left arm. He anxiously inquired how many we had lost, and when I told him, he shook his head gravely.
“I have three dead over yonder,” he replied, “and twice as many disabled. The garrison is reduced by nearly a third, and the savages are fighting recklessly! I greatly fear, Hawke, that if they rush the stockade again—”
“We’ll beat them off twice, thrice, four times if need be,” the factor interrupted. “At the worst, we are likely to have a long siege of it.”
He spoke cheerfully and confidently, but none the less I saw a haggard, strained look in his face, as he glanced toward the flickering light in Flora’s window.
By this time the firing was taking a brisker turn, and the three of us separated, Hawke and Menzies striding across to the north side of the inclosure. I went to my old place, and there I remained for a trying half-hour.
Trying is a poor word for the sort of warfare the Indians carried on during that interval. They were scattered about thickly to north and east of the fort, and within close range, but each warrior was cunningly concealed behind a stump or a snow hillock.
How they could see so well is a mystery, but certain it is that they brought their muskets to bear on every loophole of the stockade and the tower. The storm was raging bitterly, but in their furred garments their hide moccasins and leggings, they defied the exposure.
At the first we lost a man killed, and had three wounded. Then we grew more careful, and reconnoitered from what little crevices we could find before we ventured on a shot. Those who had no loopholes kept loading spare muskets and passing them to us, taking our own as soon as we fired. I had several narrow escapes, but by watching for the spurts of flame and smoke and for the limbs that now and then showed darkly against the snow, I killed or disabled half a dozen of the enemy. Baptiste was on my right, and just beyond him was Captain Rudstone.
There was one diversion during the time I speak of, and that from the west side of the fort, where a great clamor of firing and whooping suddenly broke out. I did not dare to leave my post—I was virtually in charge of the east stockade—but Captain Rudstone led half a dozen men to the disturbed quarter. The scrimmage was quickly over, and when the captain returned I got a report from him.
“It’s all right,” he said. “The devils rushed us, but we drove them back by volleys from the loopholes, killing half a score and losing one ourselves. The ground dips down to the fort there, and we had a clean sweep. They won’t molest us on that side again—it was a half-hearted attack, anyway.”
“I wish they would drop the whole thing,” I replied bitterly.
Captain Rudstone shrugged his shoulders.
“You would be a fool to expect it, Carew,” he said. “I am not a bird of ill-omen, but, by Heaven! the redskins are determined to hang on till they take the fort.”
“They’ll have a wait,” said I.
“That’s as maybe,” the captain rejoined. “If there were only the Indians to reckon with! But Northwest men are among them, cleverly disguised; and I doubt not Cuthbert Mackenzie is one of them.”
“I am sure of it,” I asserted.
“He is after revenge—and Miss Hatherton,” the captain went on. “And to my mind, it is a toss up which will make the girl the happier—Mackenzie or Hawke.”
I turned on him fiercely, and I could have struck him with pleasure; he seemed to take a malicious delight in probing my heart wound.
“Is this a time to talk of such things?” I cried. “I wish to hear none of it, Captain Rudstone. Miss Hatherton is nothing to me!”
The captain laughed—a low, sneering laugh—and just then an Indian bullet sang between us.
“A close shave!” he muttered, as he strode off to his loophole.
I turned to mine, and it partly relieved my feelings to get a shot at a feathered scalp-lock, that was bobbing behind a tuft of bushes twenty feet away. I aimed true, and with a convulsive leap a warrior fell sprawling in the open.
My success stirred the savages up a little, drawing a chorus of vengeful whoops, and a straggling shower of lead that pelted the stockade like hail.
Then the fire ceased almost entirely, ami after waiting and watching for five minutes, I concluded to leave my post temporarily and have a look about the fort.