All of us had recognized the voice as that of Colonel Hetherill, and we believed the rifle-barrel to be an asset of the same man.
The doctor answered the hail with the loud announcement that we were friends, but the colonel bade us be off at once or he would shoot. Knowing his temper, we shifted our ground with great promptness. But we did not leave. Instead, we took refuge in the woods and undertook to prepare a plan of campaign.
The shack was an exceedingly small affair, but from the roof we saw a piece of old stove-pipe projecting, and we guessed that he was provided against the cold. How he stood in the matter of food and water we could not know. But we decided to treat with him at once, thinking we could appeal to his better reason. The doctor hoisted my white handkerchief on the end of a stick and approached the hut. But the colonel threatened us again with the rifle, and was all the more furious because the bearer of the flag was the doctor, who had assisted in my escape and therefore was the worst traitor in Fort Defiance.
CHAPTER VII.
BESIEGERS AND BESIEGED.
The doctor compelled to return, I took the flag and advanced with it. But the colonel hated a Yankee spy as much as a traitor, and warned me off in short order. We gave the flag to one of the soldiers, whom the colonel allowed to approach a little closer. They held a brief dialogue, and then our messenger came back to us, announcing that the colonel regarded all his men as traitors or deserters and would parley no further with them. They might besiege him if they would, but he meant to make a last stand for the Confederacy.
"Was he well?" I asked the man.
"I didn't see him at all," he replied, "for he talked through a chink in the wall, but his voice was mighty high and had a crack in it."
This confirmed me in my belief that privation and excitement had mastered the colonel. Nevertheless we must sit down to a siege of the last rebel. We arranged our forces in such manner that he could not leave the hut and escape unseen into the further mountains. We waited an hour; then, as the colonel in his castle made no sign, I and a soldier went back for Grace. We found her in the hut, waiting impatiently to hear from us, and she did not show much surprise when I told her that her father had fortified himself against us.