By degrees I succeeded. The still air of the night and the heavy, damp
odors of the foliage helped me. And I tried to think what was right for
me to do. I had promised the master not to leave the place, and that
promise seemed in pledge to my father. Surely the master would come
back--or Breed. They would not leave me here alone without food much
longer. Although I was young, I was brought up to responsibility. And I
inherited a conscience that has since given me much trouble.

From these thoughts, trying enough for a starved lad, I fell to thinking
of my father on the frontier fighting the Cherokees. And so I dozed away
to dream of him. I remember that he was skinning Cameron,--I had often
pictured it,--and Cameron yelling, when I was awakened with a shock by a
great noise.

I listened with my heart in my throat. The noise seemed to come from the
hall,--a prodigious pounding. Presently it stopped, and a man's voice
cried out:--

"Ho there, within!"

My first impulse was to answer. But fear kept me still.

"Batter down the door," some one shouted.

There was a sound of shuffling in the portico, and the same voice:--

"Now then, all together, lads!"

Then came a straining and splitting of wood, and with a crash the door