He guessed what was coming.  He had shown his enemies that life still existed in the cabin, life with death in its hands, and now—­from the shelter of the other cabins, from the darkness, from beyond the light of his flaming home, the rifle fire continued to grow until it filled the night with a horrible din.  He flung himself face-down upon the floor, so that the lower log of the building protected him.  No living thing could have stood up against what was happening in these moments.  Bullets tore through the windows and between the moss-chinked logs, crashing against metal and glass and tinware; one of the candles sputtered and went out, and in this hell Alan heard a cry and saw Mary Standish coming out of the cellar-pit toward him.  He had flung himself down quickly, and she thought he was hit!  He shrieked at her, and his heart froze with horror as he saw a heavy tress of her hair drop to the floor as she stood there in that frightful moment, white and glorious in the face of the gun-fire.  Before she could move another step, he was at her side, and with her in his arms leaped into the pit.

A bullet sang over them.  He crushed her so close that for a breath or two life seemed to leave her body.

A sudden draught of cool air struck his face.  He missed Nawadlook.  In the deeper gloom farther under the floor he heard her moving, and saw a faint square of light.  She was creeping back.  Her hands touched his arm.

“We can get away—­there!” she cried in a low voice.  “I have opened the little door.  We can crawl through it and into the ravine.”

Her words and the square of light were an inspiration.  He had not dreamed that Graham would turn the cabin into a death-hole, and Nawadlook’s words filled him with a sudden thrilling hope.  The rifle fire was dying away again as he gave voice to his plan in sharp, swift words.  He would hold the cabin.  As long as he was there Graham and his men would not dare to rush it.  At least they would hesitate a considerable time before doing that.  And meanwhile the girls could steal down into the ravine.  There was no one on that side to intercept them, and both Keok and Nawadlook were well acquainted with the trails into the mountains.  It would mean safety for them.  He would remain in the cabin, and fight, until Stampede Smith and the herdsmen came.

The white face against his breast was cold and almost expressionless.  Something in it frightened him.  He knew his argument had failed and that Mary Standish would not go; yet she did not answer him, nor did her lips move in the effort.

“Go—­for their sakes, if not for your own and mine,” he insisted, holding her away from him.  “Good God, think what it will mean if beasts like those out there get hold of Keok and Nawadlook!  Graham is your husband and will protect you for himself, but for them there will be no hope, no salvation, nothing but a fate more terrible than death.  They will be like—­like two beautiful lambs thrown among wolves—­broken—­destroyed—­”