“Heavens! Huldah is gone!” cried the settler, staggering from the scene, for a moment completely unmanned.
For a moment only.
“The gate! the gate!” he cried, springing forward, but Vanderberg and Poston had foreseen the danger.
Their strong arms closed the ponderous structure, as a hundred arrows buried their flinty heads in the boards!
The gate was then barricaded in a jiffy.
“Listen! They’re about to storm us,” said Vanderberg.
“Quick, then! Summon thirty men hither!” shouted Levi. “We must meet them here first. ’Twill be daylight soon, thank heaven!”
Vanderberg sprung to execute the task assigned him, and the old settler bent over the form lying at the gate.
It was poor Jones. His skull had been crushed by the butt of a musket, and he was quite dead.
“The old fort swarms with traitors,” said Armstrong, looking up at Poston. “Hunter was Strong’s confederate. Now we’ll meet the storming dogs.”