True to the Old Flag (Historical Novels - American Cycle). G. A. Henty

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      Chapter III.

       The Redskin Attack.

       Table of Contents

      Mr. Welch was with the men, two or three hundred yards away from the house, when the Indians suddenly sprang out and opened fire. One of the men fell beside him; the farmer stooped to lift him, but saw that he was shot through the head. Then he ran with full speed toward the house, shouting to the hands to make straight for the gate, disregarding the cattle. Several of these, however, alarmed at the sudden outburst of fire and the yells of the Indians, made of their own accord for the stables as their master rushed up at full speed. The Indians were but fifty or sixty yards behind when Mr. Welch reached his gate. They had all emptied their pieces, and after the first volley no shots had been fired save one by the watchman on the lookout. Then came the crack of Pearson's rifle just as Mr. Welch shut the gate and laid the bar in its place. Several spare guns had been placed in the upper chambers, and three reports rang out together, for Mrs. Welch had run upstairs at the first alarm to take her part in the defense.

      In another minute the whole party, now six in all, were gathered in the upper room.

      "Where are Nelly and Harold?" Mr. Welch exclaimed. "I saw the canoe close to the shore just before the Indians opened fire," the watchman answered.

      "You must have been asleep," Pearson said savagely. "Where were your eyes to let them redskins crawl up through the corn without seeing 'em? With such a crowd of 'em the corn must have been a-waving as if it was blowing a gale. You ought to have a bullet in yer ugly carkidge, instead of its being in yer mate's out there."

      While this conversation was going on no one had been idle. Each took up his station at a loop-hole, and several shots were fired whenever the movement of a blade of corn showed the lurking place of an Indian.

      The instant the gate had been closed War Eagle had called his men back to shelter, for he saw that all chance of a surprise was now over, and it was contrary to all redskin strategy to remain for one moment unnecessarily exposed to the rifles of the whites. The farmer and his wife had rushed at once up into the lookout as the Indians drew off and, to their joy, saw the canoe darting away from shore.

      "They are safe for the present, thank God!" Mr. Welch said. "It is providential indeed that they had not come a little further from the shore when the redskins broke out. Nothing could have saved them, had they fairly started for the house."

      "What will they do, William?" asked his wife anxiously.

      "I cannot tell you, my dear. I do not know what I should do myself under the circumstances. However, the boy has got a cool head on his shoulders, and you need not be anxious for the present. Now let us join the others. Our first duty is to take our share in the defense of the house. The young ones are in the hands of God. We can do nothing for them."

      "Well?" Pearson asked, looking round from his loop-hole as the farmer and his wife descended into the room, which was a low garret extending over the whole of the house. "Do you see the canoe?"

      "Yes, it has got safely away," William Welch said; "but what the lad will do now is more than I can say."

      Pearson placed his rifle against the wall. "Now keep your eyes skinned," he said to the three farm hands.

      "One of yer's done mischief enough this morning already, and you'll get your har raised, as sure as you're born, unless you look out sharp. Now," he went on, turning to the Welches, "let us go down and talk this matter over. The Injuns may keep on firing, but I don't think they'll show in the open again as long as it's light enough for us to draw bead on 'em. Yes," he went on, as he looked through a loop-hole in the lower story over the lake, "there they are, just out of range."

      "What do you think they will do?" Mrs. Welch asked.

      The hunter was silent for a minute.

      "It aint a easy thing to say what they ought to do, much less what they will do; it aint a good outlook anyway, and I don't know what I should do myself. The whole of the woods on this side of the lake are full of the darned red critters. There's a hundred eyes on that canoe now, and, go where they will, they'll be watched."

      "But why should they not cross the lake and land on the other side?" Mr. Welch said.

      "If you and I were in that canoe," the hunter answered, "that's about what we should do; but, not to say that it's a long row for 'em, they two young uns would never get across; the Injuns would have 'em before they had been gone an hour. There's my canoe lying under the bushes; she'd carry four, and would go three feet to their two."

      "I had forgotten about that," William Welch said, and then added, after a pause: "The Indians may not find СКАЧАТЬ