CHAPTER V--A RUNNING FIGHT

“It is what I expected and feared,” groaned Sergeant Dick; “the Indians of the Paquita Reservation have revolted over the delay of the Government in sending them the promised compensation for the wrongful arrest of their chiefs last year in regard to these White Hood outrages.”

“Pray Heaven that my uncle and cousins will be able to gain the shelter of the ‘castle,’” panted Muriel. “My two cousins-in-law, the wives of my cousins Abel and Aaron, are with them. What can we do to help them?”

“Nothing as yet that I can see,” rejoined Dick; “they are too far off for the carry of a rifle. Ah, they can hold their own, and will win here safely, I think.”

Seven puffs of smoke had spurted from the two leading canoes. Evidently the shots had found human billets in the pursuing crafts, for two of these yawed wildly, and were run foul of by two of their fellows with such force that all four canoes were upset, and their occupants flung into the water.

And then from the right-hand side of the pair on the “castle” verandah--from a point on the western shore, somewhat to the northward--came the echo, loud and distinct, of the fusillade from the fugitive canoes--seven separate reports in quick succession.

Sergeant Dick was surprised at the sharp-cut clearness of the echo, and could almost have believed that it was no echo, but that seven shots had been fired at the point whence the sound came.

But for that wonderful echo the reports of the fugitives’ rifles would have been unheard by the two on the verandah of “Water Castle,” and the pair in the ark. It accounted also for their hearing the alarm-signal fired so far away down the lake.

Muriel read in the young trooper’s face his amazement at the echo, and said:

“It is a curious phenomenon, and was known long before my uncle built this house. A shot fired anywhere round the margin of the lake is repeated from that shore and tossed to our ears here as if the sound came directly from there.”

“Wonderful!”

“That was one of the reasons why my uncle chose this particular site for his fortress. Of course, he and his sons, aided by some of the other settlers and their cowboys, made the shoal by dumping into the lake at the spot boatloads of rock blasted from the hills behind the woods yonder.”

She pointed to the shore whence the echo had come.

“There are a lot of great cliff-like rocks over there. You can see some of them peeping above the trees, and it is supposed that the echo comes from them. The Indians used to call this lake ‘The Lake of the Wonderful Echo.’”

A ringing chorus of derisive laughter now came across from the western shore, clearly the echo of that with which Trapper Arnold and his four sons and two daughters-in-law, in their canoes, had hailed the temporary discomfiture of their red-skinned foes.

Sharp on the laughter came the echoing crash of rattling volley after volley, broken occasionally by a stray shot or two.

Sergeant Dick and Muriel, even while they had been discussing the wonderful echo, had seen the two fugitive canoes simply spouting smoke and flame for several seconds, pouring in a ceaseless fire from every rifle they contained into the embarrassed Indians, who could be seen thrown into the utmost confusion.

Only one or two redskins replied to the devastating fire of their white adversaries, and they were quickly silenced.

All the pursuing canoes fell behind; and, amid triumphant hurrahs and more derisive laughter borne to the ears of those in the ark and on the castle-verandah by the remarkable echo, the fugitives came on again with redoubled speed in their direction.

In a few minutes the fleeing whites had put a considerable distance between themselves and their red foes, who, making no further attempt to pursue, fired after them in a desultory, enraged way.

“Hurray! Hurray! Your uncle and the lads and their wives have beaten them off, Muriel!” roared Aunt Kate from the ark.

And she and Jenny now, having put that clumsy craft about, stood away at full speed, with the wind abeam, to meet the fugitives.

“Yes, thank Heaven they have beaten them off!” cried Muriel. “The red ruffians will probably now abandon the chase. My uncle and cousins are safe.”

“The Indians are not in any great numbers,” said Sergeant Dick, shading his eyes from the dazzling rays of the setting sun as he peered in the direction of the fighting. “That means, I suppose, that most of the bucks are raiding and murdering elsewhere. God help the inmates of the more lonely ranches that the painted demons may attack.”

The police officer and the girl remained on the verandah, watching the ark and the two fugitive canoes rapidly approach each other, and the discomfited redmen gradually evolve some order among themselves again, and follow more warily, keeping up a dropping but impotent fire at long range.

Slowly the red sun sank from sight behind the cliffs from which the wonderful echo came; then rapidly the red streaks died out of the western sky and dusk began to settle down over the lake and the woods enclosing it.

It was almost dark, and the ark and the two leading canoes had nearly met, when Muriel Arnold suddenly uttered a startled cry.

She had brought a pair of binoculars from the living-room, and was attentively watching the ark and the canoes of her people through it.

“More Indians! A great fleet of canoes has just come round the southern bend, sergeant,” she gasped, handing Dick the glasses.

He looked through them and saw, as she had said, a great flotilla of canoes--fully forty or fifty--rounding the bend and paddling swiftly to join the half-dozen craft which had originally been chasing the trappers.

“By Jove!” he murmured. “We are in for it with a vengeance. Thank goodness your people have almost met, and the ark sails swiftly with the wind on her beam. She’ll have it the same coming back, of course. I wouldn’t have given her credit for so much speed. She can outstrip a canoe no matter how fast it is paddled.”

“That is so, sergeant,” gleefully exclaimed Muriel. “We have often run races, Jenny and I, or one of my cousins-in-law in the ark against the canoes, manned by as many as they could hold. Some of the cowboys and ranchmen from the nearest ranches have occasionally taken part in the race--helped man the canoes. And the ark has always won; that is if anything like a fair wind were blowing, of course.”

Somehow, Sergeant Dick was not altogether pleased to hear that the cowboys and owners of the nearest ranches came to “Water Castle” at times, and were so friendly with its occupants.

He fell to wondering, even while he watched the exciting scene transpiring upon the southern end of the lake through the binoculars, whether any of the said cowboys or ranchmen came on account of the lovely girl beside him, attracted by her beauty and charm of manner. And he pictured, with a certain twinge of heartburning and jealousy, her graceful form sitting on the verandah with several handsome, dare-devil young cow-punchers bending admiringly over her.

An awful, piercing, long-drawn-out yell or screech rang suddenly in the ears of the pair on the verandah. It was the echo of the war-whoop of the newly-arrived redmen.

Much has been written and told of the terrible battle-cry of the American Indian, but one who has never heard it can have no conception really of its terror-inspiring and nerve-shattering shrillness and duration.

It has been likened to the shriek of “some maddened steam-engine,” a long-drawn piercing screech, modulated by the fingers placed as stops over the mouth. And it has been said that buffaloes on hearing it have been known to sink in terror to the ground, and bears to topple from a tree.

The effect of such a scream issuing in chorus from the throats of a hundred or more painted savages, deservedly dreaded for their ferocity and their cunning, might well strike panic to the hearts of the first white settlers in the wild and woolly west. Especially when such knew it was but the prelude to the fiercest of bloody warfare, which, if successful, meant worse horrors--torture in the most fiendish way before death came as a happy release.

No wonder then that Muriel Arnold shuddered, trembled from head to foot, and clapped her hands over her ears, with agonized horror upon her face, to shut out that horrible, ringing, thrilling scream echoed from the western shore.

“Quick!” cried Sergeant Dick, “we must barricade the windows--put the house everywhere in a fit state to resist a fierce siege. Those hundred and more redmen are not going to quit here without a furious and determined effort to capture or destroy this place and all within it. We can do nothing as yet to succor your relations, Miss Arnold, but we can get all in readiness, before their arrival, to beat off the savages, or at any rate hold the wretches well at bay. Ah, see!”

And he pressed the binoculars into the hands of the girl.

“The ark has met your uncle and cousins, and they are getting aboard her. You may count them safe now from all pursuit so long as the wind lasts; and it is not likely to drop for some time, blowing as hard as it is. Come! We’ll see to all the windows--make preparations for a possibly long and determined siege by the craftiest enemies ever known.”

The first war-whoop of the more distant body of redskins was answered by another from the half-dozen leading canoes--the original pursuers, who now concentrated a heavy fire upon the ark as she took aboard the fugitives.