"It seems to me, Jo, you had everything in your favor," said Megill, who, like all the others, was deeply interested in the narrative of the hunter.
"There's just the trouble; the chief and his men were scared out of their moccasins for a minute or so, and if it had happened that I hadn't showed myself afore, and the Wyandots didn't know I was outside, the scare might have amounted to something; but when the other warriors come around the chief, and he learns what has took place—if he didn't know it all before—he'll see that the whole thing was a trick, and he will be madder than ever. I think he'll open the music agin very soon."
"If he fires the cabin," said Colonel Preston, "it will be apt to make it pretty warm in here, for the wind does come from that direction, and I wish the thing didn't stand quite so near us as it does. But the sides of the block-house are not so dry as the roof, and I hope we can stand more heat from that source than the Wyandots think."
"We have considerable water left," said Jo, "and we must take mighty good care that none of it is wasted."
"Did you find the tomahawk in the door?" asked Ned.
"I felt for it, but it was gone."
The prospects were discussed in low, earnest tones, while every one was in a fever of expectancy. There was constant peeping through the loopholes, and the occasional whistling and whooping were accepted as signals to open the last decisive attack.
Jo Stinger was moving about in this manner, doing what he could to cheer his friends, when some one caught his elbow.
"Who is it?" he asked, stopping short.
"It is I, Ned Preston," replied the boy; "I want to ask you a question."