Ambrose followed at their heels. At the top of the bank, to his unbounded relief, they turned toward the store. He still had a little time. All he could do was to offer himself to the defenders.
"I'm going to the side door of Gaviller's house," he said to Tole.
"Get guns for us, somehow, and come to me there."
He knew that Tole, who was as dark as the Kakisas, and in no way distinguished from them in dress, ran little risk of discovery in the confusion.
There was no sign of life about the post; every window was dark. The
Indians swarmed across the quadrangle without meeting any one.
As Ambrose reached the fence around Gaviller's house he heard the store-door and the windows go in with a series of crashes. He crouched beside the gate to wait for Tole. It was useless for him to offer himself without a weapon.
They started a fire outside the store. Fed with excelsior and empty boxes, the flames leaped up instantaneously, illuminating every corner of the quadrangle, and throwing gigantic, distorted shadows of men on the store front.
On the nearer side of the fire the silhouettes darted back and forth with the malignant activity of demons in a pit. Men issued out of the store with armfuls of goods that they flung regardless to the flames.
Already they were dressing themselves up in layer after layer of clothes until they no longer resembled human creatures. What they could not wear they hung about their necks.
Some came out tearing at food like wolves. Others darted into dark corners of the square to hide their prizes. A man appeared dressed in a woman's wrapper and hat, and capered around the fire to the accompaniment of shrieks of obscene laughter.
There was a continuous sound of rending and crashing from within the store. The trader in Ambrose groaned to witness the destruction of good weapons and cloth stuffs and food. Some one would suffer for the lack of it in the winter.