But old Mr. Curley took the matter coolly enough.
“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “As it happens, friends, the roof is of new green wood, cut and put on only this summer; so the arrows won’t set fire to it in a hurry.”
Ball after ball of fire, each attached to a cunningly aimed arrow, fell upon the roof. But the green wood would not take the fire readily, as the old settler had prophesied. Seeing this the savages ceased throwing the fire arrows, and there fell a silence over all outdoors as complete as the darkness.
“Something is going forward,” spoke Sandy, his eye at a port-hole endeavoring to pierce the black pall which enveloped everything. “The villains are not so quiet as that for nothing.”
There was, indeed, something ominous in the silence; the night seemed crowded with the grotesque forms of fear; a feeling that there was something—a dreadful something—pressing toward them, settled upon the defenders.
“Ready all!” said the man in the buckskins. “We’ll have them down on us in a moment.”
“And remember, lads,” warned old Mr. Curley, “our powder is not too plentiful. So don’t waste a shot. Be sure of your Injun before you pull trigger.”
The prediction of the man in buckskin was, a moment later, fulfilled. Silent as ghosts the Shawnees had formed a complete circle about the cabin and crept across the clearing toward it. Now they were close enough for a rush; the war-whoop, that thing of fear on the border, rang out; the red braves, dusky and but faintly seen, were under the log walls.
“Be sure of your shots!” cried old Mr. Curley; “pick your redskin, lads, and don’t waste the good black powder!”
