CHAPTER IV--INSIDE “WATER CASTLE”

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.