"What is the matter with your arm?"
"It's only a scratch," the girl replied, in a matter-of-fact tone. "It bleeds a little, and I've wrapped a piece of my gown around it."
"You're wounded!" Mark cried, and he made as if to jump down from the platform, when Susan said, sharply:
"Stay where you are! Even though I was hurt badly, which I'm not, you have no right to leave the fence unguarded."
Mark stepped back with a certain sense of shame that it had been necessary for Susan to remind him of his duty, and then Mistress Harding went to her daughter's side.
"It is a slight wound on the left arm," the good woman said, after insisting on an examination of the injury. "I will take her to the house while I tie it up properly, and Ellen may stand here in her place."
"But Ellen can't use a musket as well as I, and we're needed here," Susan cried, more concerned lest she be forced to leave her station at the palisade than on account of the wound.
Mistress Harding might have insisted on her daughter's going into the building if at that moment the assault had not been renewed, and during the next ten minutes the defenders were actively employed.
The Indians, profiting by the teachings and example of the Frenchmen, whose allies they were, had divided the force, a portion remaining hidden in the thicket to fire at the children, while the remainder made a rush for the gate, as if believing it might be forced open.
Now it was that the defenders were obliged to move quickly, and it was impossible for them to remain under cover all the while.