The Indians howled with baffled fury and concentrated their fire
upon the open window of the “castle.” Several of their bullets
actually frayed the rope, while others entered the open window.
But Abel and Aaron’s wives rushed in, and, from the other,
shuttered, windows looking on to the verandah, opened a dropping
fire upon the discomforted redmen. In less time almost than it takes
to tell it, the near end of the ark bumped against the verandah, and
the craft was safe.
Hurriedly making fast the rope in the “castle” and the ark, the
occupants of both were able to man their loopholes again in full
strength. They fired into the besiegers with such effect that these
saw the hopelessness of continuing the struggle and broke and
paddled away for dear life out of the radius of the light.
“We’ll have our horses back. If we are sharp we can manage it,”
roared the squatter inside the ark. “Quick! Amos, Abner, sergeant,
let us get up the sail.”
“No, no, uncle, you’ll be captured--you’ll all go to your certain
capture or death!” screamed Muriel, inside the “castle.”
“Not us!” cried Amos. “The Injins air all running like sheep. We’ll
chase ’em. The burnin’ stable will give us all the light we need.”
“It would be the height of folly, squatter,” said Sergeant Dick
quietly. “Out in the open lake and darkness the canoes would be
buzzing round you immediately, like wasps around a jampot. Besides,
do you think for a moment the Indians would let you recover the
horses _alive_? No, they would cut the animals’ throats if they had
to abandon them. And, look at the distance the rafts are from us,
and how near to the shore. We couldn’t possibly do it, fast as I
know the scow sails, with the delay in opening and warping out
through your dock-gate.”
“You hold your tongue until you are asked for your advice, me bold
policeman,” snarled Abner.
“All the same it would be downright, dod-rotted madness, Alf, and
you’ll do no such thing!” bawled the squatter’s wife. “Let the
’osses go. They’re not wu’th my brave lads’ lives, if you don’t
vally your own. Ain’t you got the sense to know when to come in out
of the rain?”
That settled it.
Old Man Arnold grinned a little sheepishly at Sergeant Dick, then
faced sharply upon his son Abner.
“You hold _your_ tongue, me lad, and l’arn a little more respec’ for
a man who’s proved hisself to be a man all through this ’ere night.
Never you mind him, sergeant. He allus had a spiteful tongue. Don’t
know why ’zactly. Didn’t get it from me, anyways, though he mout
from the old ’ooman.”
The redmen were now in full retreat on all sides, and the majority
of them were already swallowed up in the inky shadows surrounding
the circle of light still feebly cast by the almost burnt-out
tar-barrel.
Without fear of being shot at, therefore, Sergeant Dick, the
squatter, and Amos and Abner emerged from the open door of the ark,
and followed each other on to the verandah of the “castle,” to the
accompaniment of sounds of the door of this being hastily unbarred
and unbolted.
Jenny was the first to rush forth, and greet her father and
brothers. She threw herself, sobbing and laughing together
hysterically, into the old man’s arms, while her cousin Muriel
advanced to the young police officer, and said:
“Sergeant, on behalf of my uncle and aunt and cousins, as well as
myself, I thank you sincerely for the excellent help you gave us. I
am sure we are all very grateful to you.”
“What did he do more’n the rest of us?” asked Abner. “Wasn’t it for
his own life as much as yourn or anybody else’s, he was fightin’. He
on’y done wot we all done, and had to do.”
“You are ungenerous, Abner. At least have the decency to hold your
tongue if you can’t be grateful for the excellent service our guest
rendered us, and remember that he is our guest.”
“Hoity-toity, gal! Can’t the lad speak in his own ’ome? Since when
did you put up to l’arn my sons manners?”
This from the aunt and mother.
“That’ll do--that’ll do, Kate! The gal was quite right, and Abner’s
an ungrateful young pup as wants l’arnin’ different. Come, let’s git
indoors. Mother, and you, gals, put the pot on, and let’s have
somethink to eat, and give us somethink to drink while it’s
a-cookin’. I’m that thirsty I could nigh drink the lake dry, and you
must be the same, sergeant.”
Dick admitted that he was dry, but said that a glass of water would
serve him. Whereupon Muriel at once rushed off and brought him one,
to the scowling and muttered resentment of Abner.
The old woman promptly put a big pot on an oilstove, and Muriel and
she proceeded to lay the table, while her husband and sons, throwing
themselves into chairs, were served with tin mugs of whisky by Jenny
and the two daughters-in-law, Bella and Deborah.
Occasionally one of the young men would rise and look out through a
loophole in front or at the side, to see that all was well without;
and while they drank and filled and smoked their pipes, they agreed
that it was most unlikely that the rebellious Indians would renew
the attack upon them.
“They’ve had their bellyful of fightin’ with us, there’s no doubt
aboot that,” guffawed Abel, the eldest brother. “They’ve gone off
right enough; they’ll not show up here again in a ’urry, though I
’spects they’ll carry on their devilish games elsewheres--range all
over the country, raisin’ Cain. But that don’t matter a red cent to
us s’long as they leaves us alone.”
“It matters a lot to me, though,” said Sergeant Dick. “As one of the
custodians of law and order in the country, my duty demands that I
delay no longer here, but hurry at once back to the nearest
police-station, an’ put myself at the disposal of my
superiors--assist them in whatever measure they see fit to take to
cope with this revolt.”
“You must stay the night with us, sergeant,” said the old squatter.
“Don’t go and say later on as ’ow we druv you away. You mustn’t take
no heed of that surly young pup, Abner, there.”
“No, I don’t think I ought to wait until morning. It makes my blood
run cold when I think of the atrocities these rebel braves may be
guilty of all over the defenseless country while I am snug and safe
here. I couldn’t sleep comfortably in my bed, Mr. Arnold. My plain
duty is to get away back to my fellow-troopers, and help in checking
these redskin raiders--putting a stop to their wild work. And so you
must really excuse me for apparently running away from you and not
availing myself of your kind invitation. I will partake of your
hospitality, however, so far as to remain until after supper, for I
am just about famished, and it’s no use starting out on the
back-trail faint with hunger. But, after that, I will trouble one or
more of your sons”--he purposely did not look at Abner--“to put me
ashore somewhere, on the north shore preferably, when I will make
the best of my way on shank’s pony to Lonewater, the nearest of our
stations about here, I believe.”
“Please yourself, sergeant,” responded the old man, “but, harkee!
You needn’t go on foot. There’s an old fellow lives wi’ his wife,
and no ’un else, back of the cliffs wot the echo comes from on this
lake. You heerd the echo, no doubt?”
“I did.”
“Waal, this old chap--name of Seymour--is an old shepherd on the big
sheep ranch that stretches for miles on miles t’other side of them
cliffs--the Lonewater Ranch it’s known as; and he keeps a couple of
horses allus for gallopin’ round looking arter stray sheep, and if
you tells him or his missus you comes from me they’ll let you have
one of the nags ’ithout a word.”
He was frowning in a strange, deprecatory way at his four sons, who
had all looked quickly and suspiciously at him and one another when
he first mentioned about the shepherd.
Abel, Aaron, and Amos nodded back at him, plainly reassured. But
Abner shrugged a shoulder and turned away, the gesture signifying,
as plain as plain could be, in the vernacular of the country, “Oh,
the old man’s fair dotty, and, as for me, I give him up as
hopeless.”
Sergeant Dick did not fail to notice these strange looks and signs
passing between the father and sons. It was his business to be
observant, to keep his eyes about him and notice such little things.
But he could not understand the meaning of them, the reason for
them, and was considerably puzzled.
He feigned, however, not to notice anything, to be absorbed in the
contemplation of the glass of milk which Muriel had insisted on his
having.
He was to wonder afterwards why he was not sharper--why he did not
tumble to the significance of this wireless telegraphy.
“Oh, thank you!” he said. “I shall be glad if you will direct me to
this Seymour’s cabin. But possibly the poor old man and his wife
have fallen victims to the Indians’ fury. The fiends are bound to
scour the country all round, and murder every living soul they come
across.”
“They’ll not get hold of old Bill Seymour or his missus. You can lay
to that.”
Again his sons frowned and shook their heads at him, and he frowned
back at them in a way that clearly meant, “Mind your own business,
lads. I know what I’m doing.”
“I don’t mind a-tellin’ _you_, sergeant, that he’s had his cabin
burnt over the heads of his missus and hisself afore now by
redskins, and bad whites, an’ nary a ’air of either of ’em has been
singed. And for why? Waal, as I said I don’t mind a-tellin’ _you_,
but it mustn’t go no further, mind. Acause the cabin’s abuilt close
by the cliffs, not thirty yards from ’em, and he and his missus hev
a hunderground passage that they dug out a-runnin’ from th’ ’ut to a
hidden cave in the rocks--a cave that the redmen wouldn’t find if
they s’arched for donkeys’ years.”
His sons on this, exchanged nods that implied, like Abner’s shrug,
that their father was clean crazy thus to give away Seymour’s
secret. Aaron jumped up quickly and noisily, and shouted, clearly in
order to put a stop to the old man’s confidences:
“Come on, mother, Deb, Bella, Muriel, Jenny! What are you all so
long about? Let’s have something to eat for goodness’ sake. I’m just
starved. Hurry up, do!”