Her eyes fell.  Her hands crept confidingly up his arms.  “Ah!  I want so to believe it,” she faltered.

He thought he had won her again.  His arms swept around her, crushing her to him.  “My love!” he murmured.

She went slack in his arms and coldly averted her head.  “Do not kiss me,” she said.

He instantly released her.

“It’s not the time,” she murmured.  “It seems horrible to-night.  I—­I am not ready.  By what happens to-night I will know for always!”

“But, Colina—­” he began.

She offered him her hand with a beseeching air.  “I do not hate you any more,” she said quickly.  “You have a lot to forgive in me, too.  Be merciful to me.  Show me—­to-night.”

He drew a steadying breath.  “Very well,” he said.  “I am contented.”

CHAPTER XXV.

ACCUSED.

The long suspense wore terribly on the defenders of the house.

To wait inactive, listening to the frightful yelling and watching the play of the fire, not knowing at what moment yelling, bullets, and fire might be directed at themselves, was disorganizing to the stoutest nerves.

When the attack should come all knew that their refuge was more like a trap than a fortress.  Ambrose wished to abandon the house for the Catholic church up the river.

This little structure was stoutly built of squared logs; moreover, it was possible that some lingering religious feeling might restrain the Indians from firing it.

The suggestion was received with suspicion.  John Gaviller refused point-blank to leave his house.

As the hours passed without any change in the situation they began to feel as if they could endure no more.  They were almost ready to wish that the savages might attack them and have done with it.

They endlessly and vainly discussed what might be passing in the red men’s minds.  Tole Grampierre, hearing this talk, offered to go and find out.

There was no danger to him, he said.  Even if they should discover that he was not one of themselves, they had no quarrel with his people.  Ambrose let him go.

He never returned.  Ambrose and Macfarlane helped him through the barbed wire, and he set off, making a wide detour behind the houses that faced the river, meaning to join the Indians from the other side.

Most of the Indians had for some time been engaged in rifling the warehouse, which adjoined the store behind.

Ambrose and Macfarlane, anxiously watching from the porch, heard a sudden outcry raised in this quarter, and saw a man come running desperately around the corner of the store, pursued by a howling dozen.

Ambrose knew the runner by his rakish, broad-brimmed hat and flying sash.  His heart leaped into the race.  Tole was gaining.

“Go it!  Go it!” Ambrose cried.

Tole was not bringing his pursuers back to the big house, but led the way off to one side by the quarters.  Only a few yards separated him from the all-concealing darkness.