My questioning eyes sought her face, and I read there a plea for mercy not to be resisted.  She meant her words, and the hate and distrust in my own heart seemed mean and vile.  I stepped forward and struck the horse sharply, sending him scurrying around the end of the cabin.

“Go in!” I said, grimly, to Kirby, looking him squarely in the eyes.  “And then play the man, if you care to live.”

I lingered there upon the outside for a moment, but for a moment only.  The advancing cloud of savages were already coming up the slope, gradually spreading out into the form of a fan.  The majority were mounted, although several struggled forward on foot.  Near their center appeared the ominous gleam of a red blanket, waved back and forth as though in signal, but the distance was too great for my eyes to distinguish the one manipulating it.  We were trapped, with our backs to the wall.

There were but few preparations to be made, and I gave small attention to Kirby until these had been hastily completed.  The door and window were barred, the powder and slugs brought up from below, the rifles loaded and primed, the few loopholes between the logs opened, and a pail of water placed within easy reach.  This was all that could be done.  Kennedy made use of the fellow, ordering him about almost brutally, and Kirby obeyed the commands without an answering protest.  To all appearances he was as eager as we in the preparations for defense.  But I could not command him; to even address the fellow would have been torture, for even then I was without faith, without confidence.  The very sneaking, cowardly way in which he acted, did not appeal to me as natural.  I could not deny his story—­those approaching Indians alone were proof that he fled from a real danger; and yet—­and yet, to my mind he could not represent anything but treachery.  I possessed but one desire—­to kick the cringing cur.

I stood at a loophole watching the approaching savages.  They had halted just below the big tree, and four or five, half hidden by the huge trunk, were in consultation, well beyond rifle shot.  Assured by their attitude that the attack would not be made immediately, I ventured to turn my face slightly, and take final survey of the room behind.  Tim had stationed himself at the other side of the door, his eyes glued to a narrow opening, both hands gripped on his gun.  Eloise and the colored girl, the one dry-eyed and alert, the other prone on the floor crying, were where I had told them to go, into the darkest corner.  The boy I did not see, nor even remember; but Kirby stood on the bench, which enabled him to peer out through the loop-hole in the window shutter.  What I noticed, however, was, that instead of keeping watch without, his eyes were furtively wandering about the room, and, when they suddenly encountered mine, were as instantly averted.

“Where was it you met those Indians, Kirby?” I questioned sternly.