It had about as much effect as a trickle of water upon a conflagration.  They made no attempt to dislodge Ambrose from in front, but swarmed into the water on either side, and putting their backs under the boat, lifted her off the stones.  Scrambling over the sides, they shouldered Ambrose and the breed ashore from behind.

Ambrose shouted to the breeds:  “Go home and stay there all night.  You must not be mixed up in this.”

“What will you do?” cried Simon.

The york boat was already floating off, the crew running out the sweeps.  Ambrose, without answering, ran into the water and clambered aboard.  In the confusion and the dark the Indians could not tell if he were white or red.

He made himself inconspicuous in the bow.  His only conscious thought was how to get a gun.  He had no idea of what to do upon landing.

Upon pushing off, moved by a common instinct of caution, the Indians fell silent, and during the crossing there was no sound but the grumbling of the clumsy sweeps in the thole-pins, and the splash of the blades.

Standing on the little platform astern, silhouetted against the sky, Ambrose recognized the man who had given the word to attack Gaviller.

He marked him well.  He was of middle size, a tall man among the little Kakisas, with a great shock of hair cut off like a Dutchman’s at the neck.

On the way over Ambrose was greatly astonished to feel his sleeve gently plucked.  He studied the men beside him, and finally made out Tole under his flaring hatbrim.

Into his ear he whispered:  “I told you to go home.”

“I go with you,” Tole whispered back.  “I your friend.”

Ambrose’s anxious heart was warmed.  He needed a friend.  He gripped Tole’s shoulder.

“Have you a gun?” he asked.

The breed shook his head.

“Get guns for us both if you can,” said Ambrose.

On the other side, the instant the york boat touched the shingle, the Indians set up a chorus of yelling frightful to hear, and scrambled ashore.

Ambrose and Tole were among the first out.  Together they drew aside a little way into the darkness to see what would happen.  There was no need to warn the Company people; the yelling did that.

The Indians set off across the beach and up the bank, working themselves up with their strident, brutish cries.  The habits of thirty years of peace were shed like a garment.  The young men of the tribe had never heard the war-cry until that moment.

Ambrose followed at their heels.  At the top of the bank, to his unbounded relief, they turned toward the store.  He still had a little time.  All he could do was to offer himself to the defenders.

“I’m going to the side door of Gaviller’s house,” he said to Tole.  “Get guns for us, somehow, and come to me there.”

He knew that Tole, who was as dark as the Kakisas, and in no way distinguished from them in dress, ran little risk of discovery in the confusion.