CHAPTER XIX.
THE TUG OF WAR.
The extinguishment of the burning roof, for the time, was complete. Utter darkness came like the blowing out of a candle in a vault.
"The varmints know what it means!" muttered Jo Stinger, who made a hurried retreat along the roof toward the trap-door, which had been thrown wide open in readiness for his reception.
The Wyandots were quick to learn the cause of the sudden darkness, and they opened a brisk fire on the roof. This necessarily was at random, and the scout dropped through to the floor, without so much as a scratch upon him.
Colonel Preston and his friends would have felt like uttering a cheer over the success of Jo's boldness, but for the conviction that the worst was yet to come and was close at hand.
One fact was so apparent that it caused a strengthening of hope: the wind, which had been blowing almost a gale from the south, had fallen, so that the lull was perceptible. Should the Wyandots fire the cabin standing a short distance from the block-house, the flames were not likely to communicate unless the gale appeared again.
All was darkness once more. The wind soughed dismally through the trees and moaned around the block-house, which was scorched and still smoking from the burning arrows of the Wyandots. The fine snowflakes were still sifting downward, and far overhead was heard again the honk of wild geese flying to the milder regions of the south.
From within the settler's cabin standing near the stockade came a dull glow, but there was no other sign of life that eye could detect. And yet the block-house was environed by hostile red men, who were as eager as so many wolves to break into the fold.
Colonel Preston, Jo Stinger, Megill, Turner, and the boys were at the loopholes watching and listening. Mrs. Preston alternated from the side of her children to that of her husband, exchanging words with the brave man who had been so cramped in his movements for the last day or two that he was unable to do the service he wished to render his friends.
The sounds of hurrying feet, the hoarse guttural exclamations and the bird-like signals showed that the Wyandots were near the fort. They had taken advantage of the Egyptian darkness to steal up close to the sides of the building, where their presence could only be discovered through some movement that made a noise sufficient to reach the ears of the listeners above.