savages, even wild for scalps. I'm mighty glad we have the canoe. It
holds the food we need for a siege, and if the chance for escape comes
it will bear us away. I think, Tayoga, I can see a figure stirring
among the boulders on the other side farther up."

"I see two," said the Onondaga, "and doubtless there are others whom we
cannot see. Keep close, my friends, I think they are going to fire."

A dozen rifles were discharged from a point about a hundred yards away,
the exploding powder making red dots in the darkness, the bullets
rattling on the stone cliff or sending up little spurts of water from
the river. The volley was followed by a shrill, fierce war whoop, and
then nothing was heard but the flowing of the river and the rushing of
the rain.

"You are not touched?" said Tayoga, and Robert and Willet quickly
answered in the negative.

"They don't know just which way to aim their guns," said Willet, "and so
long as we keep quiet now they won't learn. That shout of yours, Tayoga,
was not enough to tell them."

"But they must remember about where the hollow is, although they can't
pull trigger directly upon it, owing to the darkness and storm," said
Robert.

"That about sums it up, my boy," said the hunter. "If they do a lot of
random firing the chances are about a hundred to one they won't hit us,
and the Indians don't have enough ammunition to waste that way."