CHAPTER VII.

THE WORK OF A LIE.

The settler’s eyes fell upon Zebulon Strong, as the startling words written at the conclusion of chapter five rung from his lips.

But the captain stood the scrutiny unflinchingly, and started forward with drawn sword.

“The traitor shall die!” he cried. “Let every one look to his neighbor, and watch him closely. As for myself, I believe that Morg Sawyer is the villain; but he is beyond our power. Men, to the lower floor with picks; we’ll dig another well immediately. By the help of God, we’ll hold out against the red and white fiends until fresh water can be struck!”

He turned away as he finished, and was ordering a number of men below to inaugurate the digging of a new well, when Huldah Armstrong bounded toward the settler and touched his arm.

“Father,” she said, in a cautious tone, “Captain Strong is the traitor! I was standing near the logs, a moment since, and heard Wolf-Cap at the gate. He told the guards that our captain had betrayed us into the hands of the savages.”

The next instant Levi jerked his arm from Huldah’s grip, and started toward Strong, who was handing buckets of water to the men on the roof.

“Men,” he cried, in thunderous tones, “treason must not thrive here. Captain Strong, you must consider yourself the prisoner of the garrison.”

Before turning to the old settler the traitor passed the bucket he was in the act of lifting to the nearest man.

He retained a wonderful self composure.

“I submit, if it be the will of the men,” he said, calmly. “Heaven forefend that I should seek to betray these women and children into merciless hands,” and he glanced around on the swarthy faces revealed by the tallow dips.

“Let the captain help us,” cried several voices; but old Levi silenced the speakers with a look.

“I’d like to, but it won’t do,” he said. “The evidence is strong against him. I saw him whispering to Morg Sawyer at the gate, a minute before that dog’s desertion, and Wolf-Cap has just shouted over the palisades that he is a traitor.”

For the first time the captain’s face grew pale, and Levi proceeded to disarm him.

“I’m sorry for all this, Cap,” he said, sympathetically; “but you see, we’ve got to do it, and—”

“Arrest Captain Strong!” interrupted a sturdy young settler, whose head shot above the hatchway at this juncture. “Wolf-Cap has just halloed over the gate that he is a traitor. Ah! so you’ve already caught the dog! Zeb Strong, for a shilling I’d strike you stiff and cold on these boards. I’ve two sisters here, and to think that you would give them over to the tomahawk!”

The youth towered before the suspected man with flashing eyes and leveled gun, and other weapons were drawn to shed the captain’s blood.

“No, no, boys; he’s not condemned yet,” said Levi Armstrong, pushing the weapons aside. “We’ll tend to him after the fight.”

“But we may not win.”

“Then, of course, he dies.”

A guard of several men was placed over the captain, who was taken below where strong arms threw up the earth in great heaps. Mad eyes fell upon the captive, and he was told that his life would be forfeited if he attempted to escape.

Above, the settlers fought the flames at the risk of their lives, for the foe were raining bullets from the hill and the battle had opened in terrible earnest.

Suddenly a startling cry came from the vicinity of the well.

“No more water!”

And the words were echoed on every side. Mothers pressed their babes to their breasts, and told the little ones that the last drop of water had been drawn from the well!

“What of the fire?” shouted Armstrong to the men on the roof.

“If we had more water we could master it,” was the reply. “Without water we are doomed.”

Then he leaped to the gangway and cried to the well-diggers below.

“No water yet?”

“No!” was the despairing answer.

The fire-fighters threw the buckets from the roof and clambered down after them. But all who went up did not come down. Several had been shot by the enemy, and lay dead on the ground between the fort and the palisades.

Now every one believed that the fort was doomed to destruction. The clapboards on the western roof were blazing furiously, and cinders were falling among the besieged. The light added to the ghastly scene; but the settlers stood nobly at the port-holes and more than one shot proved the death-knell of a foe.

All at once a peal of thunder, rattling over their heads, shook the fort to its very foundation, and ejaculations of joy burst from every throat.

“God be praised!” cried a woman bursting from the shuddering throng with her babe in her arms. “He is sending the rain to save us. Praised be His holy name!”

A moment later and the storm clouds broke and great gray drops fell splattering in the fire.

The rain was greeted with a hearty cheer that reached the ears of the besiegers, and every faint heart took hope. For a moment the rain descended in scattered quantities, and then it came down in gigantic and irresistible sheets.

“We are saved—hurrah! hurrah!” cried the younger settlers, stepping back from the ports and slipping in the blood and water that covered the puncheons. “Open the well and let the water in.”

Sure enough, the crimson demon was yielding to the deluge, and every one saw in their deliverance the hand of Deity.

“We’re not out of the fire yet,” said Levi Armstrong, calmly, for to him command of the fort had been given by unanimous consent. “After the rain we must fight again, then no roof can protect us—the fire-arrows will drop among us. But we must to work. Remove the ammunition below to a dry place, and let our dead be laid aside and the wounded cared for.”

Brave men sprung with eagerness to the task. Several kegs of powder were carried below, and the loss of the garrison looked after.

It was discovered that it had suffered quite severely during the battle. From behind stumps, the Indians had fired into the ports, distinctly revealed by the widely-leaping flames of the roof, and with fatal effect. The majority of the stricken settlers were killed outright—shot through the head—while every wound was dangerous. Twenty-one men had fallen, including the loss at the gate and another, Morgan Sawyer, had deserted.

The well-diggers struck water as the storm broke over the fort; but they did not cease their labors, for they knew that it would not last long—a summer shower, but a furious, a saving one.

“Miss Armstrong, can I trust you?”

“You can.”

“Then come with me.”

The first speaker was Matt Hunter, the man whom Captain Strong had placed over the well after Sawyer’s defection.

He was a small, wiry man, rather prepossessing in appearance, and had fought like a tiger with the water buckets.

Huldah Armstrong drew from his look that he had something in view for the good of the garrison, and followed him to the gangway.

But, as the settler had put his foot on the first round of the ladder, the face of a strange man was revealed below, and he started back.

“Wolf-Cap!” he shouted to the busy men and women about him. “Wolf-Cap is here!”

Immediately the cry of “Wolf-Cap” resounded throughout the fort, and the next minute the Night-Hawks’ foe appeared above the hatch!

“Welcome, welcome, neighbor Belt!” cried old Levi, springing to the trapper. “Bloody times, these.”

“Ay, ay,” said Wolf-Cap, quickly. “But to the ports; This is the darkest hour of the night. The foe is crawling through the storm both from the river and hill. Thank heaven! the rain has saved your fort.”

The settlers sprung to their places.

“The demons carry ladders,” continued Wolf-Cap, “and they’ll make a desperate effort to carry the palisades by storm.”

Matt Hunter and Huldah did not wait to hear the trapper’s words, but hurried below and paused before the guard at the lower door.

“You can’t get out here,” said the sentry.

“Can’t,” echoed Hunter. “We’re on a mission from our new captain.”

“True, Miss?” asked the soldier, looking at Huldah.

“Mr. Hunter should know,” she answered, and the heavy door was unbolted, and they stepped into the yard.

“Miss Armstrong, I am on a secret mission for your father,” he said, when they heard the door shut violently. “I can not disclose it yet, so please bear with me. We must now relieve the gate guards.”

He walked rapidly toward the gate, where three sturdy settlers stood.

“Jones, Vanderberg and Poston, I believe,” he said, pausing before the trio, whose forms were just visible in the gloom.

“Yes,” answered a rough voice, “them’s we. What’s wanting?”

“Our new captain wants Vanderberg and Poston to the council up-stairs. Wolf-Cap advocates a change of tactics. We—Miss Armstrong and I—will guard the gate with Jones, until relieved. We were sent hither for that duty.”

Matt Hunter paused; but the two men hesitated. Since the arrest of Zebulon Strong, they did not know whom to trust, and theirs was the most important post connected with the safety of the fort.

“No doubt other strength will be sent hither on your appearance above,” said Hunter, uneasily. “Your voices are needed in the council. You can leave your muskets here; but I think we will not need ’em. Wolf-Cap reports the foe under cover.”

His last words decided the guards; they leaned their muskets against the stockade and left the gate.

Without difficulty they gained the interior of the fort, and paused a moment to inquire into the progress of the well-diggers.

Then they ascended the ladder and appeared in the battle-room. The storm had spent its fury by this time, but the wind was flaring the dips and imparting a demi-gloom to the entire interior of the place. Still, the light enabled the sentries to see men at the port-holes, and the women were scrubbing the floor with bedding. There was nothing that looked like a council of war.

“Where’s the cap’n?” asked Vanderberg, touching a woman’s arm—and the dame could not repress a cry when she looked up into his white face.

“Here,” called a lusty voice from a darkened corner, and a tall form advanced toward the guard. “I’m here—what’s wanting?” and then the commander caught sight of Vanderberg’s face. “Roger Vanderberg, what are _you_ doing _here_?” he cried, and his hand closed on the settler’s arm. “Your post is at the outer gate. What can have brought you hither? Speak! These are nights when traitors are abroad.”

The guard, now thoroughly alarmed and frightened, could not find his tongue for a moment.

“And Poston, you here too? Who _is_ at the gate?”

“Sir, your daughter and Matt Hunter,” cried Vanderberg, with considerable fire in his tone. “He sent me up to the council.”

“Council? there’s no council here,” and the old settler’s cheeks suddenly grew pale. “I never sent for you—never! Matt Hunter must mean something terrible. We’ll go down and see.”

He sprung to the hatch, and quickly disappeared, followed by the sentries.

The lower guard opened the door without a challenge, and the trio passed into the yard.

There Levi Armstrong’s worst fears were realized. The gate was deserted and stood ajar!

Deserted? No! At the foot of one of the posts lay the body of a man.

“Heavens! Huldah is gone!” cried the settler, staggering from the scene, for a moment completely unmanned.

For a moment only.

“The gate! the gate!” he cried, springing forward, but Vanderberg and Poston had foreseen the danger.

Their strong arms closed the ponderous structure, as a hundred arrows buried their flinty heads in the boards!

The gate was then barricaded in a jiffy.

“Listen! They’re about to storm us,” said Vanderberg.

“Quick, then! Summon thirty men hither!” shouted Levi. “We must meet them here first. ’Twill be daylight soon, thank heaven!”

Vanderberg sprung to execute the task assigned him, and the old settler bent over the form lying at the gate.

It was poor Jones. His skull had been crushed by the butt of a musket, and he was quite dead.

“The old fort swarms with traitors,” said Armstrong, looking up at Poston. “Hunter was Strong’s confederate. Now we’ll meet the storming dogs.”

He muttered the last sentence as a body of men emerged from the fort.

“Huldah isn’t gone, Armstrong?” said the foremost man, whose wolf-skin cap proclaimed his personality.

“Gone—gone, Belt!”

“Curse the luck! Why didn’t I shoot Matt Hunter, when I caught him tampering with my traps, two years ago?”

“Would to heaven you had.”

Wolf-Cap looked at the settler and then gritted his great teeth till they fairly cracked.

“Matt Hunter took the girl along to buy his own liberty,” he murmured. “Royal Funk will get her now. But he sha’n’t wear her—no! not while my name is Card Belt.”

“Nor while mine is Mark Harmon!”

The trapper started and saw the young borderman standing by his side.

“Your hand on that, boy!” cried the trapper, with a smile, and two hands were clasped and sealed in determination.

“I guess the dogs have gone back to growl,” said Belt, glancing up. “They’ve let the golden moment slip. It’s gettin’ too light to attack now.”