"What will they do, William?" asked his wife anxiously.
"I cannot tell you, my dear. I do not know what I should do myself under the circumstances. However, the boy has got a cool head on his shoulders, and you need not be anxious for the present. Now let us join the others. Our first duty is to take our share in the defense of the house. The young ones are in the hands of God. We can do nothing for them."
"Well?" Pearson asked, looking round from his loop-hole as the farmer and his wife descended into the room, which was a low garret extending over the whole of the house. "Do you see the canoe?"
"Yes, it has got safely away," William Welch said; "but what the lad will do now is more than I can say."
Pearson placed his rifle against the wall. "Now keep your eyes skinned," he said to the three farm hands.
"One of yer's done mischief enough this morning already, and you'll get your har raised, as sure as you're born, unless you look out sharp. Now," he went on, turning to the Welches, "let us go down and talk this matter over. The Injuns may keep on firing, but I don't think they'll show in the open again as long as it's light enough for us to draw bead on 'em. Yes," he went on, as he looked through a loop-hole in the lower story over the lake, "there they are, just out of range."
"What do you think they will do?" Mrs. Welch asked.
The hunter was silent for a minute.
"It aint a easy thing to say what they ought to do, much less what they will do; it aint a good outlook anyway, and I don't know what I should do myself. The whole of the woods on this side of the lake are full of the darned red critters. There's a hundred eyes on that canoe now, and, go where they will, they'll be watched."
"But why should they not cross the lake and land on the other side?" Mr. Welch said.