“There is no danger,” he replied, calmly puffing his pipe; “is there, Ballyhoo?”
“None at all,” was the calm response.
“I thought perhaps that because they had suffered so severely, they would come back to revenge themselves,” ventured the little woman, still busily plying her needle.
“But you see the damage was done, not by you and Dinah, though you did your part, but by the men, and them’s the ones they’ll go for,” observed Ballyhoo.
“That is not the invariable rule with Indians,” was the truthful remark of Mrs. Shirril. “It makes little difference to them whether the innocent or guilty suffer.”
“But,” said the husband, “the prime object of the redskins is cattle, with perhaps horses thrown in. You know they have been hanging round for a number of days, waiting for a chance before we started north; they will make an effort to run off those stampeded cattle to-night, and likely enough will follow 195 us into the Indian Nation, on the watch for a chance to gather in several hundred hoofs.”
“I think there’s one thing that’s encouraging,” said Avon, addressing all his friends; “you know how dry the roof of the house is. If Dinah hadn’t put her foot down when she did, there would have been no cabin at this moment. The Comanches tried to fire the sides, and failing in that, gave their attention to the roof, where they came so near succeeding.”
“What do you refer to as encouraging, Avon?” asked his uncle.
“There’s a storm in the air; we are going to have a regular driving rain, that will soak the roof until a ton of live-coals on the top wouldn’t set fire to the planking.”
“Baby is right,” said Ballyhoo, with a nod of his head; “rain will fall within twelve hours.”