At the click of it Kaskisoon moved.  He looked at the half-breed.  His breath came in a low monosyllable of understanding.  Over the top of the windfall he poked the barrel of his gun.  Then he looked again at Jean.  And Jean turned.  Their eyes met.  They were eyes red and narrowed by the beat of storm.  Jean Croisset knew what that silence meant.  He might have spoken.  But no word moved his lips.  Unseen, his right hand made a cross over his heart.  Deep in his soul he thought a prayer.

Jean looked again at the huddled group about the door.  And beside him there was a terrible silence.  He held his breath, his heart ceased to beat, and then there came the crashing roar of the Cree’s heavy gun, and one of the group staggered out with a shriek and fell face downward in the snow.  Even then Jean’s finger pressed lightly on the trigger of his rifle as he tried to recognize Lang.  Another moment, and half a dozen rifles were blazing in their direction.  It was then that he fired.  Once, twice—­six times, as fast as he could pump the empty cartridges out of his gun and fresh ones into the chamber.  With the sixth came again the thunderous roar of the Cree’s single-loader.

“Pa, Kaskisoon!” cried Jean then.  The last of Thoreau’s men had darted back into the house.  Three of their number they had carried in their arms.  A fourth stumbled and fell across the threshold.  “Pa!  We have done.  Quick—­kistayetak!”

He darted back over their trail, followed by the Cree.  There would be no truce now!  It was War.  He was glad that he had come with Kaskisoon.

Two hundred yards back in the forest they met Philip and Adare at the head of their people.

“They were coming to ambush us when we entered the clearing!” shouted Jean.  “We drove them back.  Four fell under our bullets.  The place is still full of the devils, M’sieur!”

“It will be impossible to rush the doors,” cried Philip, seeing the gathering madness in John Adare’s face.  “We must fight with caution, Mon Pere!  We cannot throw away lives.  Divide our men.  Let Jean take twelve and you another twelve, and give Kaskisoon his own people.  That will leave me ten to batter in the doors.  You can cover the windows with your fire while we rush across the open with the one log.  There is no need for two.”

“Philip is right,” added the Missioner in a low voice.  “He is right, John.  It would be madness to attempt to rush the place in a body.”

Adare hesitated for a moment.  His clenched hands relaxed.

“Yes, he is right,” he said.  “Divide the men.”

Fifteen minutes later the different divisions of the little army had taken up their positions about the clearing.  Philip was in the centre, with eight of the youngest and strongest of the forest men waiting for the signal to dash forward with the log.  First, on his right, was Jean and his men, and two hundred yards beyond him the master of Adare, concealed in a clump of thick spruce, Kaskisoon and his braves had taken the windfalls on the left.