“Beyond doubt they are. We must take them by surprise. We’ll do it this way.” Sandy MacDonald’s old eyes shone with fresh fire. “You three that are armed, you’ll creep up through the brush and take your position ready to cover the door. Then I’ll drive up with the dog team as any trapper might do. I’ll get them out into the open, without arms. You will cover their escape. And so we’ll win a bloodless battle.”
“Sounds all right,” said Johnny. “But here’s hoping nothing goes wrong!”
Their method of attack agreed upon, there remained but to put it into effect.
Testing their bows, then nocking their arrows, the young archers, together with the hunchback, crept forward. Over one ridge they climbed, down a narrow gully, over a second ridge where for a second, quite breathless, they feared detection, then down the ridge followed by a break for cover in the bushes.
“We—we made it,” D’Arcy puffed in a whisper.
“Yes, we did,” Johnny agreed. “But the worst is yet to come. Look to your bow. Set your arrow squarely. If you must shoot, shoot to kill. More than one honest person’s life depends upon it.”
They crept through the bushes to a point where they might command a view of the doorway to the cabin and the open space before it. Then, sinking down in the snow behind the black bulk of a spruce tree, they awaited the zero hour.
Johnny drew his watch from his pocket. A minute ticked itself into eternity, then another and yet another.
“Sandy does not come,” Johnny whispered. “What’s keeping him?”
A chill gripped his heart. What if their valiant old leader had been ambushed and captured!