“I can’t make out why Child-of-Light hasn’t come up with his men,” he said at length, “but, anyhow, he is sure to turn up—­”

He paused, listening.  Then all in the room heard the chip-chop of an axe as it steadily cut its way through a post of considerable size.  The rebels were evidently busy.  Suddenly the sound stopped.

“They’re preparing for a rush,” observed Rory.  “What I’m surprisit at is ther riskin’ their ugly carcases as they do.”

“Sargain Pasmore—­Sargean?” cried some-one from the shed.

“Aha! he has recognised your voice,” said Jacques.  “He is as the fox, that St. Croix.”

“Well, what is it?” shouted the sergeant.

What the half-breed had to say rather took the sergeant aback.  It was to the effect that unless they surrendered within a few minutes, they would all most assuredly be killed.

Then for the first time that night Sergeant Pasmore betrayed in his voice any feeling that may have animated him.

“Go home, Leopold St. Croix,” he cried, “go home, and those with you before it is too late!  Go on to the Fort and ask pardon from those in authority, and it may yet be well with you; For as soon as the red-coated soldiers of the Great Queen come—­and, take my word for it, they are in number more than the fishes in the Great Lake—­you will be shot like a coyote on the prairie, or hanged by the neck, like a bad Indian, on the gallows-tree.  That is our answer, Leopold St Croix; you know me of old, and you also know how I have always kept my word.”

There was a dead silence for a minute or two, and whilst it lasted one could hear the embers of the dying fire fall into ashes.  On a shelf, an eight-day clock ticked ominously; the girl stood with one hand upon her father’s shoulder, motionless and impassive, like some beautiful statue.  There was no trace of fear of any impending tragedy to mar the proud serenity of her face.  At length the sound of voices came to them from outside.  It grew in volume and rose like the angry murmur of the sea.  Pasmore was looking through a crack when the noise of the chopping began again.  In another minute there was a crash of falling timber.

The sergeant turned to the girl.

“Miss Douglas,” he said, “will you kindly go into the other room for a minute!  They have cut down one of the large posts in the shed and are going to make a battering-ram of it so as to smash in the door.  Come this way, all of you.  Two on either side.  That is right.  Fire into them as they charge!”

CHAPTER IV

HARD PRESSED

The half-breeds and Indians, keen and determined as they were to effect an entrance to the house at any costs, were not without considerable foresight and strategy.  But their feint failed, and when they did make a rush with their ram two or three of them were picked off.  The survivors dropped the ram, and made a dash across the open for the stable.