When the corporal had gained the top of the ladder, Green, who was the last, having yet his foot on the first step, the former was evidently startled by some new danger.  But just as he was in the act of springing to the upper floor, the ladder, too frail to sustain their united weight, snapped suddenly asunder in the middle and fell with some noise, thus separating him from his companions.

Regardless of this and having secured his own footing, he now moved cautiously towards the opposite end of the loft, where a small opening, about two feet in length, and one in height, seemingly intended as a ventilator, appeared nearly vertical to the window of the bed-room below.  Casting his glance downwards through the opening, he beheld five or six savages standing grouped together, leaning on their guns, and apparently watching some object above them.  This, naturally, drew the corporal’s attention to the same quarter, when to his dismay he found that the long ladder usually kept at the barn was now resting against the gable of the house, not three feet from the right corner of the aperture, through which he gazed.  In an instant it occurred to him that this had been the work of the Indians, and at once accounted for the grating sounds that had so often met his ears that night.  There could be no doubt that the plan of the enemy now was to enter the roof, which could be done by removing part of the raw buffalo hides of which it was composed.  Indeed it was a slight noise made in the direction of that very angle of the roof where the ladder now stood, that had caught his attention on first putting his head through the aperture while preceding his men.  This had suddenly ceased at the moment when the ladder broke and fell, nor had there been a repetition of the sound.  Still, satisfied that some discovery of the true designs of the Indians would result from his remaining a little longer, he continued at the opening, which was too small to betray his presence if using precaution, while it enabled him to observe the movements of the enemy.  Soon afterwards he heard them speaking in earnest but low tones, as if addressing somebody above them, and then a prolonged yell, which was answered by others from the front of the house, echoed through the surrounding forests.  Even amid the horrid discord, the quick ear of the Virginian, now painfully on the stretch, caught the same sound that had first attracted his attention.  It was exactly at the angle of the roof, and only a pace or two from him.  The peculiar noise was not to be mistaken even by an unpractised ear.  It was, evidently, that of a knife, not very sharp, cautiously cutting through a tough and resisting leather.