d it was bitter medicine to swallow.

David Cooper left his rifle port to talk to Frank.

"It's only a few hours till sunset," Cooper said in a low voice, "and I
have a hunch they'll try one big attack to take this place before dark.
If they come all at once, we don't have enough rifles to stop them."

His tone was matter-of-fact, but his words struck terror into Nicole's
heart. She took Frank's hand and squeezed it. It felt cold as a dead
man's.

Cooper went on. "I keep thinking about that cannon downstairs. You know,
whatever we might say about Raoul de Marion, he did set this place up to
be defended. I figure that cannon must be in working order."

"Do you know how to fire a cannon?" Frank asked.

Cooper shrugged. "I've stood near the artillerymen a time or two and
watched them, but never thought to memorize what I saw. I couldn't even
say how much gunpowder to use. If we put in too little, we'll waste our
chance. If we put in too much, we could blow ourselves all to hell."

Nicole said, "I'd rather that than face whatever hell the Indians have
in store for us."

Cooper looked at her with his hard eyes and nodded. "Indians won't get
you, Miz Hopkins. I promise you that. Let's go take a look at that
thing."

Frank, Cooper and Nicole, chilled but grimly reassured by Cooper's
remark, cleared away the children who were straddling the cannon's
four-foot-long black barrel, and the women who were sitting against its
wooden carriage. Cooper stood frowning at the gun.

He sighed, and it sounded to Nicole like the sigh of a man about to step
off a high cliff.

"Well, let's load 'er up."

He went over to the side of the room where the flannel bags of gunpowder
were piled up, and he picked one up, holding it at arm's length as if it
were a rattlesnake. He carried it back to the cannon and slid it into
the muzzle. From the carriage he unstrapped the ramrod, a pole with a
wad of cloth wrapped around its end, and used that to push the gunpowder
down.

"Let's add another bag of powder," he said to Frank.

Women and children formed a circle to watch. Nicole pictured what the
cannon would do to all the people in this room if it blew up, and shut
her eyes.

After pushing a second bag of gunpowder down the muzzle, Cooper said,
"What we need now is canister shot that'd spread all over the place and
puncture a lot of Indians. I remember there was canister shot in the
powder magazine, but it didn't seem all that importan