ACCUSED.
The long suspense wore terribly on the defenders of the house.
To wait inactive, listening to the frightful yelling and watching the play of the fire, not knowing at what moment yelling, bullets, and fire might be directed at themselves, was disorganizing to the stoutest nerves.
When the attack should come all knew that their refuge was more like a trap than a fortress. Ambrose wished to abandon the house for the Catholic church up the river.
This little structure was stoutly built of squared logs; moreover, it was possible that some lingering religious feeling might restrain the Indians from firing it.
The suggestion was received with suspicion. John Gaviller refused point-blank to leave his house.
As the hours passed without any change in the situation they began to feel as if they could endure no more. They were almost ready to wish that the savages might attack them and have done with it.
They endlessly and vainly discussed what might be passing in the red men's minds. Tole Grampierre, hearing this talk, offered to go and find out.
There was no danger to him, he said. Even if they should discover that he was not one of themselves, they had no quarrel with his people. Ambrose let him go.
He never returned. Ambrose and Macfarlane helped him through the barbed wire, and he set off, making a wide detour behind the houses that faced the river, meaning to join the Indians from the other side.