"Ned!" she exclaimed under her breath. "Why are you here? Where are the boys?"
"The old man's got 'em locked up in the granary," he announced. Then seeing the look of alarm that flashed into her face, added assuringly: "But that's all right, I'm here! They told me to tell you they'd get out somehow 'fore mornin'. I cached their horses in the brush for 'em, and they're diggin' themselves out underneath the barn. Here," he said, handing something to her. "I got your rifle out o' your room an' hid it under the house soon's ever you left, an' all these cartridges. I just knew the old man 'ud go an' look fer it."
"Oh!" exclaimed the girl, suddenly gathering child, gun, and all into her arms. "What a little man you are."
"Yep," said the boy, disengaging himself; "an' I've got a lot to tell you!"
"And you're sure about this," questioned Hope, after the boy had told a story so complete in detail as to fairly unnerve her. "You're perfectly sure that these men are going to meet at the shed—the big shed close to Fritz's grave, there below the ledge of rocks?"
"Sure's anything," replied the boy convincingly. "There'll be seven er eight from our place, some from Old Peter's an' some from up the creek."
Hope shivered as though it had been a winter's night.
"What shall we do! What shall we do!" she repeated almost frantically.
"Why, fight 'em, of course!" exclaimed the boy. "Dave an' Dan'll get out by then, an' we'll all lay up there behind them rocks an' just pepper 'em! There's 'bout a million peek-holes in that wall o' rocks, an' they can't never hit us. Pooh, I ain't afraid o' twenty men! We'll make 'em think all the soldiers from the post is behind there!"
"The soldiers!" exclaimed the girl, filled suddenly with a new life, "and they shall be there! They shall be there!"