"Let my brother load," and Swift Arrow stood beside me again. "I will shoot."
Cheerfully enough I resigned my place to him. Now came two shots, and the bullets pattered on the cliffs behind. But to reach us the Chippewas would have to cross that open gully where lay the deep, hard snow, and even in the half-light from the closed-out skies their figures would show plainly against the white snow. And we had four guns, with a good store of powder and balls close to hand.
After those first shots, there came no sign of danger, but I knew that the cunning brain of The Pike would not rest idle for long. The Chippewas could not reach us from below without making a straight charge, which they would have little stomach for, and they could not get at us from above, since those high walls of granite could hardly be scaled.
Yet Gib solved the problem, for presently a musket roared over against us on the opposite side of the cliffs, and a bullet whistled into the cleft behind. There was no danger that those within the cavern could be injured, by reason of the twists in the passage, but the mouth of the cave where we lay could be raked easily enough, and the Arrow grunted.
"We must hit or be hit, Brave Eyes," and he laid his fusil in rest, aiming at the place whence had come the flash. A moment later it came again, but the Arrow fired almost with it. A single yell echoed up, and thereafter came no more shots from across the way.
"Think you they will try to rush upon us?" I whispered fearfully.
"They are women," he grunted disdainfully. "The Mighty One will scatter them."
"How mean you? Where is the moose?"
"He is near. The Crane will drive him before, and when he comes the Chippewas will scatter from before him."
Then I remembered what the Mohawk had first said, upon his arrival. He had met the moose traveling toward the open country, and had driven him back toward us, passing him later as he hurried on ahead of the Crees. But soon I had other things to bother my head with than the moose.