Part 5 (1/2)

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”He pointed his own weapon outward, and fired.”]

But Melville had enough warning to leap back, as the jingle and crash of gla.s.s showed how well the miscreants had aimed. Stirred to the deepest anger, he pointed his own weapon outward and fired into the party, doing so with such haste that he really took no aim at all.

It is not likely that his bullet had gone anywhere near the Sioux, but it had served the purpose of warning them that he was as much in earnest as themselves.

Melville placed a cartridge in the breech of his rifle with as much coolness as a veteran, and prepared himself for what he believed was to be a desperate defence of himself and sister.

It must not be thought that he was in despair; for, when he came to look over the situation, he found much to encourage him. In the first place, although besieged by a half-dozen fierce Sioux, he was sure the siege could not last long. Whatever they did must be done within a few hours.

While it was impossible to tell the hour when his parents started from Barwell, it must have been quite early in the morning, and there was every reason to hope they would reach the settlement by noon at the latest. The moment they did so they would learn that Melville had left long before for home, and therefore had taken the upper trail, since, had he not done so, the parties would have met on the road.

True, Mr. Clarendon would feel strong hope that his son, being so well mounted, would wheel about and follow without delay the counsel in the letter; but he was too shrewd to rely fully on such hope. What could be more certain than that he would instantly gather a party of friends and set out to their relief?

The great dread of the youth was that the Sioux would set fire to the buildings, and he wondered many times that this was not done at the time Red Feather learned of the flight of the family.

Melville glanced at Dot, and, seeing she was asleep, he decided to go downstairs and make a fuller examination of the means of defence.

”Everything seems to be as secure as it can be,” he said, standing in the middle of the room and looking around; ”that door has already been tried, and found not wanting. The only other means of entrance is through the windows, and after Red Feather's experience I am sure neither he nor any of his warriors will try _that_.”

There were four windows--two at the front and two at the rear--all of the same shape and size. There was but the single door, of which so much has already been said, and therefore the lower portion of the building could not be made safer.

The stone chimney, so broad at the base that it was more than half as wide as the side of the outside wall, was built of stone, and rose a half-dozen feet above the roof. It was almost entirely out of doors, but was solid and strong.

”If the Indians were not such lazy people,” said Melville--looking earnestly at the broad fire-place, in front of which stood the new-fas.h.i.+oned stove--”they might set to work and take down the chimney, but I don't think there is much danger of _that_.”

He had hardly given expression to the thought when he fancied he heard a slight noise on the outside, and close to the chimney itself. He stepped forward, and held his ear to the stones composing the walls of the fire-place.

Still the sounds were faint, and he then touched his ear against them, knowing that solid substances are much better conductors of sound than air. He now detected the noise more plainly, but it was still so faint that he could not identify it.

He was still striving hard to do so when, to his amazement, Dot called him from above-stairs--

”Where are you, Mel? Is that you that I can hear crawling about over the roof?”

CHAPTER FIVE

A STRANGE VISIT--OMINOUS SIGNS

Melville Clarendon went up the short stairs three steps at a time, startled as much by the call of his sister as by anything that had taken place since the siege of the cabin began.

As he entered the room he saw Dot sitting up in bed, and staring wonderingly at the s.h.i.+vered window-gla.s.s, particles of which lay all around.

”Oh, Mel!” said she, ”papa will scold you for doing that; how came you to do it?”

”It was the bad Indians who fired through the window at me, and I fired at them: you were sleeping so soundly that you only half awoke; but you must keep still a few minutes longer.”

”I thought that was you on the roof,” she added, in a lower voice.

That there was someone overhead was certain. The rasping sound of a person moving carefully along the peak of the roof was audible. The lad understood the meaning of that which puzzled him when on the lower floor: one of the warriors was carefully climbing the chimney--a task not difficult, because of its rough uneven formation.