As Sergeant John Dick followed the buggy aboard the ark, a big,
powerful woman of middle-age and rather unprepossessing looks came
hurrying out of the door of the fore-cabin.
“Are you badly hurt, sergeant?” she asked, in a voice like a ship’s
siren, but not in an unkindly tone.
Dick answered in the negative, and said that he was ashamed that his
injury had even been mentioned.
Aunt Kate gave him a swift, searching glance, then, evidently
satisfied by her scrutiny, emitted a non-committal grunt and turned
to help her niece to draw the gangboard in again and hook it in
place.
Sergeant Dick would have helped them, but Muriel smilingly waved him
back, and the operation was easily and quickly performed.
Mrs. Arnold then pushed the scow off the spit with a boat hook, and,
sending her daughter to the sweep astern, turned the sail again to
the wind, and they swung round and headed for the “castle.”
As they slipped along towards it, she eagerly and curiously
questioned her niece as to what had actually transpired in Crooked
Gulch.
“This White Hood Gang of road-agents and rustlers is fast creating a
panic in these parts, sergeant,” she said, when Muriel had finished
her recital. “You may consider yourself lucky that you have come
through your meeting with ’em as well as you have. I guess you’ve
been sent down here to try and round ’em up. But are the Government
mad, to send you by yourself--to only send one man?”
“Oh, it was more with regard to the trouble with the Indians of the
Paquita Island Reservation than anything else I was sent along. But
you may take it from me, Mrs. Arnold, that this last exploit of the
gang’s will be about their last. Government is bound to send a
strong force to put ’em down after this.”
Mrs. Arnold said that the sooner that happened the better, and then
she turned to the stores in the carrier of the buggy, and was
speedily discussing with her niece what the latter and Jenny had
paid for the things--and should have paid in her estimation.
This discussion lasted until they were almost at “Water Castle,”
which Sergeant Dick surveyed, as they approached, with the greatest
interest.
A shoal existed or had been contrived at the spot, and into this
Alfred Arnold, Jenny’s father, aided by his four grown sons--all
big, powerful men like himself, as Dick was subsequently to
learn--had driven stout piles, upon which they had erected their
dwelling.
It was square in shape, and built of tree-trunks, each two feet
thick, and squared on three sides, so that they made a smooth inner
wall and rested solidly on one another without any chinks between
them.
In each of the four exterior walls were six windows, set equidistant
apart; and before the front door, which was plated with iron an inch
thick, inside and out--to make it as strong as the walls--was a
platform or verandah, seven or eight feet wide, running the whole
length of that side of the building, and covered by the projecting
roof.
The roof itself was a flattened cone, that is, with very little rise
in it, and consisted of strips of corrugated iron, bolted down
securely, to resist high winds, upon an inner roof of timber, almost
as thick as the walls.
Surmounting it was an iron stove-pipe, and a skylight was set in
each of the four gentle slopes.
All around the house were set palisades--stout trunks of trees
driven firmly into the shoal, like the piles supporting the building
itself.
These palisades completely ringed the “castle” round, and were not
more than nine inches apart anywhere, while they all stood about
three feet above the water. Consequently they formed an outer
rampart or stockade, which would prevent possible assailants in
canoes or rafts getting in under the windows.
There was a wide gateway, fastened by a strong padlock and chain, in
these palisades, just in front of the platform or landing stage, and
the space within the enclosure was large enough to admit of the ark
being kept inside.
All the piles under the edges of the house, moreover, were
strengthened, as well as made into an inner ring of defense, by
braces and cross-timbering closing up the spaces between them. Thus
a boat could not pass under the house except through another,
smaller gateway contrived in them, and also secured by a padlock.
Mrs. Arnold had, of course, on this occasion left the outer
gateway--that in the palisades--merely hooked to; and, freeing it
with a pole, she and her niece and daughter, amid Sergeant Dick’s
loudly expressed admiration, deftly maneuvered the ark within, and
ran its bow up to a short wooden ladder hanging from the verandah.
Muriel sprang nimbly up the hanging ladder on to the verandah of the
house, and the sergeant mounted quickly after her. Then Mrs. Arnold
pushed the scow backwards with so vigorous and dexterous a push with
her pole, that the stern of the craft was carried well out again
through the gateway in the palisades. She and Jenny meant to convey
the horses and buggy to the islet, and stable them there.
“I knew you would be keenly interested in our lake home,” said
Muriel, as she lifted the latch of the door of the building, and
ushered her companion into the living-room. “Now if you will sit
down in that easy chair of Uncle Alf’s, I will soon get you
something to put new life into you, and then re-dress your wound.”
“No, no, there is no need, I assure you. My hurt is so slight it
will do very well dressed as it is, until I reach the Indian
Reservation, and can have it attended to at my leisure. And as for
alcoholic refreshment I never take anything of that nature. A glass
of cold water or a cup of milk will be all sufficient, thank you. I
am really more curious to be shown over your wonderful lake-home,
than I am thirsty or exhausted.”
“Oh, I will soon gratify your curiosity then,” Muriel laughed; and,
going to a cupboard or pantry at one end of the living-room, she
reappeared promptly with a jug of milk, from which she filled a
tumbler she took off a rude dresser, standing at the back of the
apartment.
As she did so, Sergeant Dick looked around this, and saw that, with
the pantry, it took up the whole front of the house.
It showed signs, however, of being regularly divided into three
compartments, for two rods ran across the ceiling at about the same
distance from either end, and on these rods were hung thick, rather
shabby curtains, on rings.
Right round the three outer walls of the room ran a “bank,” almost
as high as the sills of the windows--that is breast high.
“You are wondering what that high bank all around is for?” asked the
girl, as he drank off the glass of milk, and just as if she had read
his thoughts. “That is to form an additional breastwork against shot
penetrating, in case of a siege. We keep it filled, you will see, if
you peep in, chiefly with firewood for the stove.”
Dick looked the astonishment he felt; and Muriel now led him through
a door, which stood between two others.
“The other two doors,” she said, “lead into bedrooms. This door, as
you see, leads into a central passage or hall, from which all the
other rooms open. You will notice it is lighted by a skylight. It is
here that we women would be placed in case of a siege so as to be
out of danger--I don’t think,” she added, laughingly.
John Dick saw that there were no less than six doors around him,
including the one he had just come through.
“This is--” Muriel was beginning, advancing to the first door on her
right, when there dully resounded in their ears two gunshots in
rapid succession, evidently fired some distance away. The shots were
followed after a momentary pause by two more.
Muriel started violently, and gasped hoarsely:
“_There is something wrong!_ That’s our danger-signal--four shots
fired like that!”
She wheeled and darted back into the living-room, followed by the
sergeant.
They flew to the nearest window, which was open to admit the air,
and looked out.
The ark, which could not possibly have had time to get to the islet,
was only a short distance from the “castle.” Mrs. Arnold stood in
the stern with a rifle in her hands.
She saw their faces at the window, and immediately stabbed her
finger excitedly towards the southern end of the lake, and bawled
with all the strength of her lungs:
“Your uncle and the lads--chased--_chased by Indians_!”
With a half-stifled ejaculation, Sergeant Dick flung open the front
door beside him, and sprang out on to the verandah.
Muriel was immediately beside him; and, looking in the direction her
aunt had pointed, they saw two canoes, containing three or four
white persons apiece, paddling madly for the “castle,” while behind,
just rounding the bend in the shore of the lake, appeared several
more canoes full of Indians, all half-naked and bedecked in
war-paint and feathers.