Busy putting stops into the windows, and fastening them and the doors, we could do nothing to extinguish the fire before it got well under way.
A blanket was thrown over the top of the chimney to prevent a draught, and soon the whole interior was thick with stifling smoke.
The horses plunged frantically, sending the fire in every direction. Our eyes began to smart painfully, and we felt ourselves suffocating and choking in the thick and poisonous atmosphere.
To remain in the house was to be burned alive; to leave it was to perish, perhaps, in a still more horrible way. Just as I was on the brink of despair, the sergeant gasped rather than spoke:
"They are here, lieutenant. Hark! Hark!"
Ping! Ping! We heard the sound of rifle-shots, accompanied by a good, honest, Anglo-Saxon cheer. Was there ever sweeter music?
The war-whoops ceased, the blanket was quickly withdrawn from the chimney-top, and two thuds on the east side of the cabin showed the Indians had left the roof. A general scurrying of feet and other thuds down the perpendicular wall back of the spring were evidence that the besiegers were in full and demoralized flight.
We threw the doors open, and our friends rushed in, and before a greeting was uttered feet and butts of rifles were sweeping brands and straw into the fireplace, and the roaring draught was fast clearing the air.
Before I had fairly recovered my sight, and while still engaged in wiping away the tears the smoke had excited to copious flow, I heard a sobbing voice near me say:
"Oh, Franky, brother, if it had not been for dear little Vicky what would have happened to you?"