CHAPTER SEVEN
"A LITTLE CHILD SHALL LEAD THEM."—SURROUNDED BY PERIL
WITHIN a distance of a dozen yards of the house of Archibald Clarendon stood his barn. It was what might be called a nondescript building, being open at the bottom to an extent sufficient to admit his wagons, ploughs, farming implements, harnesses, and indeed about everything used in the cultivation of the fertile land.
In the upper portion were stowed his hay and grain, and in the rear of the lower part were the stables for his horses and cows. The latter, with his principal wagon, had been removed that morning, when the settler started with his family on their hasty flight northward to the settlement of Barwell; but the timber was dry, and enough hay was stored in the loft to render the building very combustible.
It was to this structure that the Sioux had applied the torch, and at the moment the smoke rolled in front of the house the whole building was in flames. Unfortunately, there was a gentle breeze blowing from the barn directly toward the house, and it was because of this favoring fact that the former was fired. The marauders had every reason to believe the flames would soon communicate with the dwelling and burn it to the ground.
The barn faced the end with the broad stone chimney, through which Red Feather made his singular entrance. It was therefore out of the field of vision of the inmates, since there was not a single window up or down stairs with an outlook in that direction.
Melville started to run down the steps on making the startling discovery, but met Red Feather coming up with one hand grasping that of Dot.
"My gracious!" exclaimed the youth; "what can be done now, Red Feather? We shall all be burned alive."
"Oogh! not yet—house ain't afire!" replied the chieftain, without any evidence of excitement.
"But the wind is blowing this way, and the house is sure to go."