"Yes; and we've got your messenger safe, my crowing buck," Girty yelled. "He'll bring you no help."
"Really got him, have you? We want to know! What kind of a man is he—how did he look?"
"A fine, smart, active young fellow."
"That's another of your lies," laughed Captain Sullivan. "He was an old, gray-headed weazel and far too smart for you!"
Haw-haw-haw!
"Laugh while you can," Girty retorted. "We see your wooden cannon-piece mounted on that roof. When you hear our own pieces battering down your walls you'll laugh in a different key. This is the last summons. Refuse, and every soul of you will fall to bullet and hatchet."
"Better to die that way, fighting, than to surrender and be butchered like dogs, the Colonel Crawford way," Silas Zane answered.
The attack was launched furiously. In a howling mob the Indians charged gates and loop-holes. They despised the threat of the little French cannon-piece upon the roof of the headquarters cabin. It looked to be the same "dummy" of seven years ago: a wooden cannon.
Captain Sullivan had climbed up. He stood with a fire-brand over the touch-hole, waiting.
The Indians jeered and gestured.