CHAPTER V.

THE OUTCROPPINGS OF TREASON.

When the flush of day broke upon Strong’s fort, not a foe was to be seen.

The numerous stumps in the clearing sheltered no feathered head; but the whites knew that their enemies had not raised the siege. The greater portion of the dusky besiegers had withdrawn to the river bank, while large numbers lay behind the hill, in the rear of the fort.

But, as the light became stronger, the defenders caught glimpses of tufts of feathers along the river; but no shots were fired.

In the opinion of several settlers, the perilous situation of affairs called for a council of war, and accordingly Captain Strong, much against his will, was induced to convene such an assembly. The council met in the lower room of the fort.

“Men,” said Strong, who could not conceal his ill-humor, “as I have said, I see no necessity for this council. I thought _I_ was director of affairs here, and when Indians are to be dealt with, I know what to do. But I will listen to any suggestions you may offer, and, if I like, will adopt them.”

Several old “fire-lands” men shook their heads gravely at the captain’s words; but made no reply.

Mark Harmon, the young frontiersman, opened the council.

“In the first place,” he said, “we need a new well.”

“We have a well, sir,” said Strong, tartly.

“You seem to forget that we have depended on the river for much water. That supply is effectually cut off now, and our sole well will not supply the demand in case the fort should be set on fire with blazing arrows. We are in for a desperate siege; the result of the gate battle has exasperated our foes, and they will leave no hellish contrivance for our capture untried. I look for terrible times to-night.”

“And you will not be disappointed, Harmon,” said an old gray-haired settler. “We stand on the edge of a crater.”

“Gentlemen, I anticipate but little hardship,” said Strong, who had listened to the young scout, with a clearly defined sneer. “The Wyandots will abandon the siege before two days, for there are other forts weaker than ours. Throop’s, Martin’s, and Westfall’s can not withstand a siege. Knowing this, the Indians will desert us for them; then, during their absence, we can strengthen our own resources.”

“Suppose, captain, that an attack should be made to-night, and our roof be set on fire,” said Levi Armstrong. “’Tis said that there are but two feet of water in the well now, and none flowing in.”

“The statement is not correct,” retorted Strong, quickly. “Yesterday I fathomed four feet of water, and more was entering. The well is a good one, and can not be dipped dry. I know whereof I speak; therefore my positiveness, gentlemen.”

The council broke up without a command being given for a new well. A number of the settlers sided with Zebulon Strong; but a wary few felt that the proposed well was an absolute want.

However, Mark Harmon got a guard over their water supply, and each family received a certain quantity of the precious fluid. The stubbornness of the captain was the cause of much comment; but as he was an old woodman and knew much of Indian sieges, it was generally admitted that he knew best, and so the day wore on.

“Do you think we will be attacked to-night, Mr. Harmon?”

The speaker’s mellow tones denoted her to be Huldah Armstrong, and she looked anxiously into the borderer’s face as she asked the question. They stood near a port-hole that looked at the hills, behind whose bare summit the sun had just disappeared.

“I look for bloodshed before dawn,” he said. “The savages would have us believe that they have deserted the vicinity; but they still remain. They are not going to raise the siege so soon after its inauguration, Miss Armstrong.” And then glancing through the port he quickly changed the subject. “But your run for life was perilous.”

“Yes; and, Mr. Harmon, father says we owe our lives to your daring. Therefore, let me thank you.”

He blushed to his temples and averted his eyes, which had returned to her face.

“No thanks, Miss Armstrong. The brave fellows who fought at the gates are the heroes, not I. But I am rejoiced to see you safe after such a noble run for life. But—”

“A flag—a flag!” was the cry that broke the youth’s sentence, and drew his eye to the musket port again.

“As I live, Miss Armstrong, our foes are treating us to a flag of truce,” he said, his eyes still riveted upon several figures that had suddenly appeared on the top of the hill. “This is an action by me entirely unexpected. What can it mean?”

Captain Strong was soon notified of the approach of the flag, and watched it through one of the openings.

His face worked strangely while he looked, and there was the light of vengeance in his large, sloe-black eyes. But he kept his face near the port, so that no one in the fort could study its expressions.

“If they demand a surrender, of course you will refuse to comply, captain,” ventured an old settler, who stood near the borderman.

Instantly, with a face crimsoned with rage, Zebulon Strong wheeled from the little embrasure:

“Am I to be dictated to on every hand?” he cried, appealing to the inmates of the apartment. “If I am captain here merely in name, I want to know it. I know a thing or two, and if I am to be advised by every frightened man and woman in the fort, you can take my broken sword, and elect another commander. What! surrender to yon horde of butcherers? Never. When they take Fort Strong, there shall be no living soul to torture.”

A loud cheer greeted Strong’s final words, and cries of, “We want no other captain!” “Do what you please!” resounded on every side.

So the officer sheathed the Revolutionary sword which he had drawn, and turned to see that the bearers of the flag of truce had halted about twenty yards from the palisades.

“Ho! Captain Strong,” came a loud and clear voice from the little group, and it was seen that the speaker was a white man clad in the full scarlet uniform of a British officer.

“Well, what is wanting?” answered Strong, through the embrasure.

“You are surrounded by nine hundred Indians, and four hundred of his majesty’s troops,” said the spokesman of the flag-bearers. “Colonel O’Neill, commander of the combined forces, desires to spare the effusion of noble blood, and therefore summons you to surrender at once.”

“Upon what terms?” asked Strong, as a murmur of defiance ran through the ranks of the fort’s defenders.

“Your people will be permitted to depart in peace; but the fort, of course, will be destroyed,” said the Briton.

“Nine hundred Indians and four hundred British,” said Strong, turning to his men after the Englishman’s last words. “I did not think the odds were so terrible.”

“The soldier lies!” cried Levi Armstrong, stepping forward. “He has spoken to terrify us, and the quarter we would receive is the quarter given to Captain Heald at Chicago. Bordermen, remember that massacre of men, women and children. Shall we surrender?”

“No! no!” rung on every side, and Captain Strong’s face assumed the hue of ashes.

“What is your answer?” cried the English officer, his impatience manifest in his voice. “Colonel O’Neill pledges his word of honor as a soldier of his majesty’s army, that the tomahawk shall be withheld in the event of a quick surrender. He can control the Wyandots, and he will. If the commander of your fort is Zebulon Strong, he then knows Colonel Argent O’Neill to be a gentleman.”

“Colonel Argent O’Neill—I know him,” said the captain. “But my men refuse to surrender.”

“Colonel O’Neill speaks to Captain Strong—not to his men,” returned the soldier, proudly; but with a sneer of contempt in his tone.

“Go back to your commander and tell him that Fort Strong will be the abode of the dead when he takes it. We know a Briton’s promise to be but another name for a lie.”

The last speaker was Mark Harmon, and his words were applauded as he turned from the embrasure.

“I was about to answer him,” said Strong, in a hoarse voice.

“He is answered!” was the young borderman’s reply.

The captain bit his lips and turned to the port again as the British officer spoke:

“The consequences be upon your own head, Captain Strong,” he said. “I have performed my duty; you have refused to perform yours. My colonel will give the conduct of the siege to the Indians now.”

Thereupon the speaker turned abruptly on his heel, and the flag of truce disappeared over the brow of the hill.

A minute later the flash of a musket and the thud of a bullet told the defenders of Fort Strong that the battle had opened.

A single gun from the fort sent a defiance to the hidden foes, and for the space of an hour quiet reigned.

Captain Strong now seemed eager to defend the block-house to the last, and exchanged words of encouragement with the settlers as he inspected the defenses.

“Well, we’re in for it, now, Morgan,” he said, in a low tone, to a burly fellow stationed near the gate where, a few hours before, so much blood had been shed. “They refuse to surrender, and now your part of the work comes. Are you ready?”

“Yes,” answered the sentry, glancing around. “The darkness will aid me.”

“Can you scale the wall?”

“Easily from the inside here.”

“Then make haste. You know the signal. I will do the rest.”

Captain Strong slipped a piece of paper into the guard’s hand as he spoke the last word, and turned away.

The next moment Morgan Sawyer scaled the pickets, and dropped to the ground on the outer side!

Then he ran toward the hill under cover of the intense darkness. For dense clouds obscured the sky from horizon to horizon, thus effectually blotting out the light of the moon.

Captain Strong had hardly gained the interior of the fort, when Sawyer’s escape was discovered.

“What! a traitor among us?” cried the commander, counterfeiting indignation and surprise to an admirable degree. “And at the gate, too! Harmon and Cole, at once to the portals! I know _you_ can be trusted. Matt Hunter, you will take Isaac’s place at the well. Curse Morg Sawyer! may the fiends scalp him for his treachery!”

The commander’s wish was echoed by more than one determined settler, who waited for the onslaught of the savages.

The men at the embrasures listened and looked for their foes, and Zebulon Strong walked uneasily about, listening all the time for a certain sound.

Once or twice he pushed the long black locks from his ears, and paused for a moment at one of the ports.

Suddenly a pistol-shot came from the hill, then another, and another.

Strong was descending to the first floor of the block-house when the sounds fell upon his ears, and he paused in the center of the ladder with a smile.

“Morg has succeeded,” he said, in the lowest of mutterings. “Now let Hunter do his duty.”

The pistol-shots died away, and no volley of musketry followed.

In the dim light of the candles, old Levi Armstrong looked at Mark Harmon and moved to his side.

“What do you think now?” he whispered.

“The foe on the hill is signaling the foe by the river.”

“Thus you interpret the shots?”

“Yes.”

“I differ. They are the result of Morg Sawyer’s treason. This roof still shelters his confederates.”

The young hunter caught the settler’s arm.

“For heaven’s sake, whom do you suspect?” he asked. “Tell me. We must act at once if we have traitors in our midst.”

The old man bent nearer to reply, when the whiz of a burning arrow startled him, and caused him to spring to the embrasure.

But the fiery missile missed the fort, and quivered in a stump near the river.

“Now take the buckets, men!” cried the voice of Captain Strong. “We must fight fire with water!”

Instantly a score of stout leathern buckets were brought into requisition, and the boards that covered the well removed.

“A little water for the women, first,” said Levi Armstrong, dropping one of the buckets into the well by means of a rope.

Down, down went the receptacle, and the men stood about with anxious faces. They wanted to know how much water was in the well, for upon a generous supply of the fluid, their lives and the lives of their wives and little ones depended.

At last the bucket was heard to strike water, and old Levi looked up almost despairingly.

“There’s scarcely two feet o’ water in the well,” he said.

“I fathomed four last night,” said Zebulon Strong, confidently. “But quick! draw up, Armstrong, and let more buckets be lowered. The burning arrows shoot from the hill like meteors.”

The next instant the water was at the top, and the settler threw the rope to Matt Hunter.

“This is for the women,” said the old man; “but I’ll taste it first.”

He raised the bucket to his lips, but a moment later ejected the mouthful of water which he had taken, and started toward the well, with flashing eyes.

“Let nobody swallow a drop of that water!” he cried. “It has been poisoned, and the poisoner is still sheltered by the roof of Fort Strong!”

The effect of the startling words was utterly indescribable. It could not have been equaled by the sudden dropping of a thunderbolt into the fort.