nothing for them." "Well?" Pearson asked, looking round from his
loop-hole as the farmer and his wife descended into the room, which
was a low garret extending over the whole of the house. "Do you see
the canoe?"

"Yes, it has got safely away," William Welch said; "but what the lad
will do now is more than I can say."

Pearson placed his rifle against the wall. "Now keep your eyes
skinned," he said to the three farm hands.

"One of yer's done mischief enough this morning already, and you'll
get your har raised, as sure as you're born, unless you look out
sharp. Now," he went on, turning to the Welches, "let us go down and
talk this matter over. The Injuns may keep on firing, but I don't
think they'll show in the open again as long as it's light enough for
us to draw bead on 'em. Yes," he went on, as he looked through a
loop-hole in the lower story over the lake, "there they are, just out
of range."

"What do you think they will do?" Mrs. Welch asked.

The hunter was silent for a minute.

"It aint a easy thing to say what they ought to do, much less what
they will do; it aint a good outlook anyway, and I don't know what I
should do myself. The whole of the woods on this side of the lake are
full of the darned red critters. There's a hundred eyes on that canoe
now, and, go where they will, they'll be watched."