Then came the lull before the storm. Men stationed as sentries on four sides of the stockade stared at the forests through the little spaces between the logs. Only muffled cryings came from the women; the men, with their guns, waited grimly for the attack.
Jules, a long, light axe in his hand, paced up and down under the stockade, peering through here and there.
The farthest sentry moved his hand in signal. Jules ran to him and looked. Men were moving rapidly among the tree trunks, but silently; as Verbaux watched he saw them open out like a fan and skirt the edge of the timber. He turned to the others and laid his fingers on his lips.
The attacking party came out into the clearing, advancing step by step and listening. On they came till they reached the stockade. Something pressed against the gate; it creaked lightly, a heavier shove made it groan, then Gregoire’s rifle sounded loudly.
“Nor’ouest! Nor’ouest! Nor’ouest!” shouted the defenders.
Outside the upright logs rifles crashed merrily, their bullets whistling and sighing across the yard. “Ah, diable!” screamed a Northwest voyageur and fell, writhing, clutching at his chest.
Outside and in the shouts and curses grew and grew until the sound was gigantic. Oaths, blasphemies, bitter curses, rang out while the guns rattled on through the chinks in the logs. The choking powder smoke burdened the air; it hung close and suffocating in the yard. A hand appeared on the top of the stockade.
Cludd! and Gregoire’s axe severed four of its fingers: they fell inside, and lay on the snow waxen and bloody.
“Oh, Dieu! blessée!” groaned a huge trapper, Eugenois by name; he staggered to and fro, gasping for air, reeling weakly, then he fell and lay still.
Little by little the flames of battle, of hate, grew in Jules’s heart as he saw his friends limping, falling about him.