“No; oh, no.”
“Then he’s likely laying low. Don’t fret, my lass; he’ll be coming along after a while.”
With the rising of the sun the Indians disappeared. They were too few in number to attack the fort, and had counted on surprising the inhabitants of the little settlement in their homes. Fortunately most of them were at the housewarming, and those who were not present were warned in time to escape. The little hunting party, of which Fergus Kennedy was one, were the only persons in real danger, and of the number all had now returned but two. But many of the little cabins were burned to the ground and the cattle slain.
At the return of her husband who had gone out to reconnoitre, and who returned with the news that all was quiet, Polly looked around at the buckets of water which she had lugged in, and exclaimed: “Well, I needn’t a’ put my stren’th in thim buckets. I’d better saved it.”
“But suppose the Indians had come and had tried to fire the blockhouse,” said Jeanie.
“Ah, but there’s no supposin’; they didn’t.”
“But we have to be prepared, and we were all glad to have something to do in an hour of peril,” said Mrs. M’Clean, “though I, for one, have no pleasure in constant alarm. I am for going to a more settled-up place. I’m willing to move on if my man gives the word. I mistrusted we were too far from ceevilization.”
“Ay, ay! ye may feel that a ways,” returned Polly, “but I’ll no let the pesky critturs get the best o’ me, and I’ll not move on fur ’em. Here I bide. I am as good a shot as they are, an’ one can die but wanst.”
“Ay, but it’s not the dying; it’s the being carried off from home and kin, and having your babies murdered before your eyes, and your husband tortured in your presence.”
“Sh!” whispered Polly, for there was Agnes at her elbow, eyes wide open with fear and cheeks pale. “I’m not scared,” Polly went on valiantly, with a nod to Agnes. “We’ve the good strong blockhouse, and we can bide here till the cabin’s built again, if so be it is burnded, which I’m not so certain it is, an’ we’re as safe wan place as anither. Those that’s born to be drownded will niver get hung, sez I,” she went on with a true Presbyterian belief in the doctrine of predestination, “an’ if I’m kilt entirely by a tomahawk, sure I’ll not die of the pox, an’ the former’s the speedier. I may lose me hair but not me beauty.”