During three or four minutes it was as if a perfect hail-storm of lead raged around the stockade, but the stout logs afforded good protection. Never a missile found its way inside, and the spirits of the besieged rose rapidly.
Acting under Mark's orders, neither Susan nor Luke had attempted to make reply to the furious shooting, lest a bullet accidentally come through one of the loopholes, and when, because their weapons were empty, the soldiers ceased the aimless firing, the children's muskets had been recharged.
"If we can do as well as we did before, those fellows will soon show their backs!" Mark cried, cheerily, himself setting the example by wounding the officer.
Now the bullets came thick and fast during a full minute, and then the foremost of the assailants began to fall back, carrying the officer with them, and an instant later the entire party was in full and disorderly retreat.
Three children had actually beaten back twenty white men and nine Indians, without having received a scratch!
Not until the faint-hearted men were at the water's edge, beyond range of those in the stockade, was a halt made, and then it appeared as if they were holding a council of war.
The officer was laid in one of the boats, and the soldiers gathered around him, the able-bodied gesticulating furiously, and the wounded seated on the sand attending to their injuries. None had been killed outright, but the majority of those who had been hit would not be likely to take part in another attack, unless it was delayed for a considerable time.
It seemed as if the white men gave but little attention to what the Indians said during this council, for the savages were shouldered aside with scant ceremony, and after a few moments all the Abenakis, for none had been wounded, stalked gravely southward, where they were soon lost to view amid the bushes.
"We're going to have trouble from those fellows, and it won't be long coming," Mark said, as he leaped down from the platform, and ran toward that portion of the stockade immediately in the rear of the dwellings. "Keep a sharp watch over the Frenchmen, and let me know what they are doing!"