"That isn't what I mean; how was it he brought you here and helped you to enter the block-house?"
In a few words, Ned Preston told the story which is already known to the reader. Before it was finished, the Colonel saw plainly the purpose of the Shawanoe youth.
"He believed there was instant necessity for me to have more guns at command, and that was why he used such great exertion to run you in."
"Do you think he did right, Uncle?"
"I must say I cannot see the necessity of his taking such terrible risks, when your help, although very welcome, was not so all important that our lives depended on it. Inasmuch as all of you were safely on the outside, where Jo Stinger tried so hard to get, it would have been the wiser plan, in my opinion, for you to have made all haste to Wild Oaks: the distance is not so great that you could not have brought help to us within two or three days."
"That is just the way I put the case to Deerfoot; but he insisted that the first thing to be done was to place us inside the block-house, and nothing could change his view. He knows so much more about such things than we, that I could not refuse to do as he wished."
"He may have had reasons which he has not made known, for he is an extraordinary Indian, although still a boy."
"That arrow which came through the window was a surprise, was it not?"
"A very great one: no one had any thought that it was anything other than a hostile one. I supposed it was intended to set fire to the building."
"Did you see it coming?"