He turned again to the door and cautiously opening it a little way, peeped out. There was nothing visible, and quickly he opened the door wider and thrusting out an arm, gripped the arrow which was sticking in the post, and hastily flung the door in place once more. Even as he did so, something crashed into the wood, and the sound of a shot reverberated through the stillness outside.
The two girls looked at him, their faces were white and they were much alarmed. Bracknell looked at the door and laughed shortly.
“It seems that we are to stand a regular siege,” he said. “That man of yours is of the persevering sort.”
Neither Joy nor her foster-sister replied, and moving towards the stove Bracknell threw on a spruce log, and as it caught and flamed up he stopped, and by its light he examined the arrow in his hand. Quarter of a minute later he stood up.
“This settles it,” he said. “This arrow is not Joe’s. It is too finely made, with an ivory barb on which somebody has spent time. Joe’s bow and arrows were makeshifts, and his barbs were of moose bone!”
“Then who can it be?” asked Joy. “Jim would have no arrows at all, and he certainly would not have fired them at Babette if he had.”
Dick Bracknell shook his head. “I cannot think. It may be a roving band of Indians from the far North. This arrow tells its own story. It is like those made by the Indian Esquimaux in the North Behring. I’ve been up there and I’ve seen arrows like it before.”
“But at least one of our attackers has a rifle,” said Miss La Farge.
“Yes,” answered Bracknell thoughtfully.