"Dorothy," I cried, "what are you doing here? Come, you must get back to the stair at once. The attack may come at any moment."
"You are treating me like a child," she protested, and her eyes flashed passionately. "Do you think we are cowards, we women? We will not be treated so! We have come to help you."
I looked at her in amazement. This was not the Dorothy I knew, but a braver, sweeter one. Her mother and Mrs. Marsh were behind her, both looking equally determined.
"Very well," I said, yielding with an ill grace. "You may sit on the floor here and load the guns as we fire them. That will be of greater service than if you fired them yourselves, and you will be quite out of reach of the bullets."
Dorothy sniffed contemptuously at my last words, but deigned to sit down beside the other women. I placed the powder and ball where they could reach them easily, shaded a candle so that it threw its light only on the floor beside them, gave them a few directions about loading, and rejoined Brightson at his loophole. The Indians had stopped dancing, and were engaged in heaping up a great pile of burning logs.
"What are they about?" I asked.
Brightson looked at me with a grim light in his eyes.
"They're going to try to burn us out," he said, and almost before he had spoken, the Indians seized a hundred burning brands from the fire, and waving them about their heads to fan them to a brighter flame, started toward us.