He freed himself from the girl's hands, caught up his hat and cloak, and left the cabin. He crossed over to the well-house, where some of the men were grinding axes and cutlasses, and joined feverishly in their simple talk of work, and battle, and adventure. Their honest faces and homely language drove a little of the bitterness of his shame from him. Presently Kingswell and Ouenwa joined the group about the complaining grindstone.
"Come," said Sir Ralph, "and look at the cannon."
He plucked Kingswell by the sleeve. Ouenwa followed them. All three ascended the little platform on which the guns were mounted, by way of a short ladder. The pieces, ready loaded, were snugly covered with tarpaulins that could be snatched off in a turn of the hand.
"A worthy fellow is William Trigget," remarked the baronet. "Ay, he is true as steel."
He laid a caressing hand on the breech of one of the little cannon. "I would trust him, yea, and his good fellows, with anything I possess," he said, "as readily as I trust these growlers to his care."
Just then Ouenwa pointed northward to the wooded bluff that cut into the white valley and hid the settlement from the lower reaches of the river. From beyond the point, moving slowly and unsteadily, appeared a solitary human figure. Its course lay well out on the level floor of the stream, and the forest growth along the shore did not conceal it from the watchers. It approached uncertainly, as if without a definite goal, and, when within a few hundred yards of the fort, staggered and fell prone.
"What the devil does it mean?" cried Sir Ralph.
Kingswell shook his head, and questioned Ouenwa. The lad continued to gaze out across the open. The sun was low over the western hills, and its light was red on the snow.
"Hurt," he said, presently. "Maybe starved. He is not of Panounia's band."