“Ye’re but wasting powder,” he cried angrily.

“Then, by tam, I am as vell under the bed,” said Poulsson.  “Vat can I do?”

I had it.

“Dig!” I shouted; and seizing the astonished Cowan’s tomahawk from his belt I set to work furiously chopping at the dirt beneath the log wall.  “Dig, so that James can get under.”

Cowan gave me the one look, swore a mighty oath, and leaping to the port shouted to Ray in a thundering voice what we were doing.

“Dig!” roared Cowan.  “Dig, for the love of God, for he can’t hear me.”

The three of us set to work with all our might, Poulsson making great holes in the ground at every stroke, Polly Ann scraping at the dirt with the gourd.  Two feet below the surface we struck the edge of the lowest log, and then it was Poulsson who got into the hole with his hunting knife—­perspiring, muttering to himself, working as one possessed with a fury, while we scraped out the dirt from under him.  At length, after what seemed an age of staring at his legs, the ground caved on him, and he would have smothered if we had not dragged him out by the heels, sputtering and all powdered brown.  But there was the daylight under the log.

Again Cowan shouted at Ray, and again, but he did not understand.  It was then the miracle happened.  I have seen brave men and cowards since, and I am as far as ever from distinguishing them.  Before we knew it Poulsson was in the hole once more—­had wriggled out of it on the other side, and was squirming in a hail of bullets towards Ray.  There was a full minute of suspense—­perhaps two—­during which the very rifles of the fort were silent (though the popping in the weeds was redoubled), and then the barrel of a Deckard was poked through the hole.  After it came James Ray himself, and lastly Poulsson, and a great shout went out from the loopholes and was taken up by the women in the common.

* * * * * * *

Swein Poulsson had become a hero, nor was he willing to lose any of the glamour which was a hero’s right.  As the Indians’ fire slackened, he went from cabin to cabin, and if its occupants failed to mention the exploit (some did fail so to do, out of mischief), Swein would say:—­

“You did not see me safe James, no?  I vill tell you Joost how.”

It never leaked out that Swein was first of all under the bed, for Polly Ann and Bill Cowan and myself swore to keep the secret.  But they told how I had thought of digging the hole under the logs—­a happy circumstance which got me a reputation for wisdom beyond my years.  There was a certain Scotchman at Harrodstown called McAndrew, and it was he gave me the nickname “Canny Davy,” and I grew to have a sort of precocious fame in the station.  Often Captain Harrod or Bowman or some of the others would pause in their arguments and say gravely, “What does Davy think of it?” This was not good for a boy, and the wonder of it is that it did not make me altogether insupportable.  One effect it had on me—­to make me long even more earnestly to be a man.