vine-covered log cabins with blue smoke curling from their stone
chimneys. Beyond, the great bulk of the fort stood guard above the
willow-skirted river, and far away over the winding stream the dark
hills, defiant, kept their secrets.

"If it weren't for that threatening fort one could imagine this little
hamlet, nestling under the great bluff, as quiet and secure as it is
beautiful," said Helen. "But that charred stockade fence with its
scarred bastions and these lowering port-holes, always keep me alive
to the reality."

"It wasn't very quiet when Girty was here," Mabel replied
thoughtfully.

"Were you in the fort then?" asked Helen breathlessly.

"Oh, yes, I cooled the rifles for the men," replied Mabel calmly.

"Tell me all about it."

Helen listened again to a story she had heard many times; but told by
new lips it always gained in vivid interest. She never tired of
hearing how the notorious renegade, Girty, rode around the fort on his
white horse, giving the defenders an hour in which to surrender; she
learned again of the attack, when the British soldiers remained silent
on an adjoining hillside, while the Indians yelled exultantly and ran
about in fiendish glee, when Wetzel began the battle by shooting an
Indian chieftain who had ventured within range of his ever fatal
rifle. And when it came to the heroic deeds of that memorable siege
Helen could not contain her enthusiasm. She shed tears over little