AT DEAD OF NIGHT.
Some one, violently shaking him, brought Cuthbert once more to his senses, and he aroused to the fact that it was Eli, who kept shouting in his ear:
"Wake up—wake up, there's the dickens to pay—pile out and help, old man—they need us bad—get up, I say, get up!"
That was certainly quite sufficient to thoroughly arouse any one, no matter if he had been a sluggard, and surely Cuthbert could never be called that; so, with a toss of the blankets, he scrambled to his feet; then, remembering that he was in his socks, he hastened to snatch up his boots and pull them on.
All this only took a few seconds of time, but during the brief period Cuthbert was dazed with the awful clamor that was making the welkin ring without, for it seemed as though every known sound had been accumulated to help carry out the idea that Gabriel was blowing his last trumpet, with the end of the world close at hand.
He knew men were shouting madly, and from the voices it was plain that those who thus gave tongue were both Cree Indians and Canadian voyageurs, for the latter had gone back to their French tongue with the advent of excitement—then it struck the Virginia lad that another sound which he had heard was very much along the line of the roaring flames, and immediately the conviction forced itself upon him that in some manner the forest close by had been fired, perhaps by some enemy of the factor, such as Dubois or Stackpole, and that there was danger of the conflagration leaping the barrier and attacking the houses within the compound.
No sooner had he thrust his nose outside the tent than he gave utterance to an exclamation of mingled surprise and consternation.
It was a fire all right, but not of the species he had suspected—the roaring sound was produced by the wind whipping the flames into the angry flood, but it was hewn timber, not erect trees, that were ablaze, one of the houses, in fact, with an end a seething mass of flames.
Cuthbert knew not what to think, save that possibly some enemy had done this; but he was quick to lend his aid to save whatever the contents might be.
Accordingly he hastened in that quarter.