Part 10 (1/2)

”Hold your fire!” commanded Enoch. ”You may have blood on your hands yet, if you be not careful.”

”But he fired at you.”

”And a poor job he made of it. We will not fire unless we are forced to.”

His mother said never a word. She went into her chamber again and with the girls and little Harry crouched upon the bed. But she glanced frequently from the loophole to observe the movements of the Yorker upon that side of the clearing.

By and by Halpen raised his voice and addressed the besieged. ”Open the door and come out, or we will batter it down. And it will go hard with you then, I warrant! If you give up the place peaceably you may cart away your household stuff and the cattle and hogs. I'll not be too hard on you.”

”If you come near this door I will send a bullet through your black heart!” was Enoch's reply, poking the muzzle of his rifle through the loophole beside which he stood.

The widow came running from the chamber. ”Enoch! Enoch!” she cried, in horror. ”Would you kill him?”

”He killed my father!” cried the boy, before he thought what explanation of his secret suspicions that remark might necessitate.

”The child is mad!” she murmured, after staring at him a full minute.

”You do not know what you say, Enoch. Master Halpen had naught to do with your poor father's death.”

But Enoch had not to reply. A cry came from Bryce in the loft. ”Look at that! Look at that!” he shouted, with excitement. ”I just will shoot him!”

And then his old musket spoke. There was a yell from without. Enoch thought Simon Halpen himself had been shot, but the Yorker only ran around the end of the cabin to where one of his men stood howling like a wolf, and holding on to his swinging arm.

”I've broke his arm!” declared Bryce, proudly, coming to the head of the ladder. ”He was flinging blazing clods on the roof.”

”What shall we do?” gasped the mother. ”My boys will be murderers.”

”I'll kill them all before they'll harm you, mother,” declared young Bryce, very proud indeed that he had hit the mark, but secretly delighted as well that he had done the villainous Yorker no serious damage.

But the moment after, he shrieked aloud and came again to the top of the ladder. His face was blanched. ”Oh, oh! they've done it--they've done it!” he cried. ”The roof is afire. Don't you smell it?”

Enoch could not believe that this horror was true until he had run up to the loft. The red flames were already showing at the edge of the house wall, and the crackling without told him that the bark and binders of the roof were burning fiercely. ”Tear it off!” he shouted, and dropping his rifle he seized a length of sawed scantling which his father had brought from the mill, and began to break up the burning roof and cast it off. But as it fell to the ground against the house, soon the logs outside were afire. The dwelling was indeed imperiled.

”Come out! come out!” shouted Simon Halpen's voice. ”The hut will burn to the ground an' ye'll burn with it. Ye'll go to Albany jail for this, every last one of ye!”

”Let me shoot him, mother!” cried Bryce, doubly excited now. ”He'll never take you to jail.”

”Come down from the loft, Bryce,” the widow commanded, calmly. ”Nothing can save the cabin now.”

The children were crying with fear. The red flames began to lick the edges of the shutters and the door frame was afire. If they escaped they must pa.s.s through a wall of flame. The men outside, frightened by the result of their awful act, were shouting orders and berating each other madly. Yet none dared come too near, for they feared the guns of the defenders of the homestead. Enoch for the moment completely lost his head and stood as one daft.

But his mother was not so. Swiftly did she sweep aside the ashes on the hearth. Then of her own exertions she lifted on its edge the flat stone which covered the underground apartment. There was the ladder the boys had made leading down into the cool depths. ”Down with you--all!” she commanded, seizing little Harry first and thrusting his feet upon the ladder.

”Oh, we'll smother down there, mother!” cried Kate.

”Nonsense!” exclaimed the widow, yet with shaking voice. ”Do you think mother would tell you to do anything that would hurt you?”

But though she encouraged them to descend, in her own mind she was simply choosing the lesser of two terrible evils. The girls and Harry descended quickly; but she had to fairly force Bryce down. He wanted to stay and fight, and he clung to the old musket desperately. Although the tears were running down his face, he was made of the stuff which holds the soldier, though frightened, to his post.

”Go down yourself, mother,” Enoch said, recovering his presence of mind and speaking calmly now. ”I will follow you and drop the stone into place. But first I want to look out----”