CHAPTER VI--THE TRAPPER AND HIS SONS

Muriel waited to dart a glance through the glasses in the direction of her relatives before following the police-sergeant into the house.

She saw the ark lying almost broadside on, in the act of putting about, with her cousins and cousins-in-law helping each other on to the stern-quarter from the two canoes.

A sufficiently wide and high screen had been put up by her aunt to cover Jenny at the tiller; and, from behind this shelter, Aunt Kate herself was rapidly firing at the Indians in the leading canoes, holding them well in check.

The strange echo from the western shore wafted the sounds of the brisk exchange of shots to Muriel’s ears.

The screen her aunt and Jenny used was as big as two cabin doors placed side by side. Several inches thick, and covered on both sides with sheet iron, it was as much as two ordinary men could lift, yet Aunt Kate had moved it with ease by herself.

It had two collapsing or folding legs on one side, like the back legs of a pair of steps, so that it would stand upright. Furthermore it was loopholed for rifle-fire.

Uncle Alf and his sons and daughters-in-law, as they scrambled aboard from the canoes, were sheltered by the cabin from the fire of their red enemies. Some of them, rushing inside the two compartments, at once replied to it briskly--aided their mother in keeping the assailants back while the canoes were got in.

Then round the scow was turned, the screen astern being moved with the tiller to keep it or rather those at it still covered, and back the craft came bowling, with bellying sail, towards the “castle” again.

Muriel, half-laughing, half-crying with relief and satisfaction, now ran inside the house after Sergeant Dick.

“Where are you, sergeant?” she called, and he answered from one of the back bedrooms.

“My uncle and cousins are all safe aboard the ark, and are making here as fast as the wind can blow them,” she called back. “Of course they could not hope to hold their own in the ark against so many canoes. The only thing is to defend the ‘castle’ to the bitter end.”

She passed through, as she spoke, into the central passage, from which the six rooms of the “castle” all opened, and joined the sergeant in the left-hand back bedroom.

That apartment contained four small square windows, two in the rear wall, and two at the side.

Sergeant Dick had already secured two out of the four windows by letting down sliding shutters set within the embrasures. These shutters were, like the tiller-screen used on the ark, of stout wood faced and backed by iron plating, and they were fastened in position, when let down, by strong bolts, so that they could not be easily forced from without.

The windows, being of the casement type, opened inward, and could be hooked back against the wall. In each shutter was a loophole for firing through.

Sergeant Dick noticed that the corner forming the outside angle of the house was rounded off by an extra vertical balk of timber, fitted triangular-wise into it, thus greatly increasing the thickness of the two outer walls just there.

As the window on either hand was only a mere step from the corner, a man stationed there could with ease defend both the back and side of the house; and the extra thickness of the rounded angle would render his position still more snug and safe.

“This is my married cousin Abel’s bedroom,” explained Muriel, as she let down one of the shutters and shot home the two bolts on it. “You’ve seen to all the windows in--which other room?”

“The one through that door,” replied John Dick, pointing towards the front of the house.

Another door, alongside the one the girl had come in, led into a bedroom between that they were in and the living-room.

There were no fewer than three doors in every room in the house, so that it was possible to make a complete circuit of this without utilizing the central passage, the idea being to enable the inmates, in case of a siege or other emergency, like fire, passing quickly from one room to another.

“Aaron and Deborah’s room,” Muriel said. “Come then, the bathroom must be our next concern.”

She led the way through the third door into a room somewhat smaller, fitted up with a large enameled iron bath--a piece of furniture which considerably surprised Sergeant Dick to find in a Wild West home of such limited dimensions, especially when built over a lake.

This apartment had its three doors like all the others, one in each of the inner walls, and having shuttered and bolted the two windows in it, the sergeant and Muriel went on into the next room.

“This is the room my cousin Jenny and I share,” explained the girl.

Had she not told him, Sergeant Dick would have guessed as much from the female articles of dress and finery hanging around, as well as the general subtle atmosphere of daintiness that prevailed.

Pictures hung on the walls here, including a pretty water-color sketch of a lovely woman in evening dress.

There were _four_ windows in this room, and they had all to be shuttered and made fast in like manner to the others. Then the man and girl entered Uncle Alf and Aunt Kate’s bedroom adjoining, secured the two windows there, and, passing through yet another door, found themselves back in the living-room, the windows of which they likewise secured.

“Now there only remains the front door,” said Muriel, adding, with a laugh, “and we can’t very well fasten that up until my uncle and aunt and the others are all safe inside with us.”

She stepped out again on to the verandah. And Dick, following her, saw that the ark was coming on fast to the “castle,” and was not a quarter of a mile away now, while the Indian canoes, although paddling their swiftest in her wake, were fully half a mile off.

Laughing softly and yet tremulously over the escape of her relations from their pursuers, Muriel remained at the front door with the sergeant, while the ark drew nearer and nearer, until at last it was close enough for its occupants to exchange greetings with her and Dick.

These greetings were naturally curt and scant.

Sailing up to the open gateway in the palisades, Uncle Alf and his sons warped the ark in by means of boathooks. Then the gate was padlocked behind the craft, and she was drawn by a rope, which Sergeant Dick threw from the verandah, alongside the hanging-ladder.

“Glad to have ye here, sergeant,” greeted Uncle Alf--a huge, grizzled Hercules of a man--as he sprang up the steps and grasped Dick’s hand cordially. “The more pairs of eyes behind the sights of rifles, and hands to use the weapons, the better, in the face of that crowd of painted, blood-thirsty rips. Ye’re more’n welcome, sergeant.”

“’Specially if ye can shoot as straight as most of you troopers can,” grinned the eldest son, Abel.

The rude witticism was received by all with a merriment that spoke volumes for their dauntlessness, in the face of the red peril coming on so fast behind them.

The ark was hurriedly moored alongside the verandah, the cabin doors being locked with ordinary keys and then padlocked as well, so that they might not be easily burst in if the savages got aboard.

The iron-plated tiller shield was brought into the house, and all withdrew within this. Then the door was not only locked and bolted, top and bottom, but also barricaded with stout logs, put transversely across it, at intervals of only a few feet, within iron sockets screwed on to the doorposts.

Sergeant Dick and the four women did the barricading, while the old trapper and his four stalwart sons--all big, powerful men like himself--hastily arranged as to where each of them should be stationed.

Bella and Deborah Arnold, Muriel’s two cousins-in-law, had both of them a certain amount of flamboyant beauty allied to a devil-may-care air, well suited to the rather picturesque, if unconventional, costumes they wore.

They were dressed like cowgirls, in short skirts, “wide-awake” hats, and top boots; and round their waists they had cartridge-belts supporting cases containing automatic pistols, while slung on their backs were heavy Winchester repeaters.

“The pelts will be safe enough in the ark,” said old Alf. “The painted rips are not likely to get inside the palisades ag’in our rifles. If they do they’re more welcome to the pelts than to our scalps. Now, sergeant, you and me ’ull defend this ’ere room, the front of the house, with the old woman and Muriel. Abel, my eldest son, will go to his bedroom, and hold the back and the right side of the house with his wife. And, Amos, you will take your stand in the middle room on the right-hand side--your brother Aaron’s room. Aaron and Deborah, you two will take Muriel and Jenny’s room; and, Abner, your mother’s and my room. Jenny, you will remain in the central passage with all the doors open, and be ready to go to the aid of any one who needs you, take round fresh ammunition, or refill the water-buckets if necessary.”

Sergeant Dick, used as he was to the giving and receiving of commands, as well as to prompt decision and arrangement in crises like the present, was surprised in no small measure at the military-like precision of the old trapper, as the latter thus ordered the defense.

He had fully expected that all would look to him to do this.

But, doubtless, Dick told himself, Old Man Arnold had planned the defense of the place repeatedly, and all his sons and daughters were well schooled in the _rôles_ they were to play in it.

They had not long been at their posts--with jugs of drinking water and water-buckets, in case of fire, placed handy--when the Indian flotilla came within gunshot in the rapidly deepening darkness.

It at once divided into two parties, each taking opposite sides of the lake, clearly so as to surround the “castle.”