mes that this was not done at the time
Red Feather learned of the flight of the family.

Melville glanced at Dot, and, seeing she was asleep, he decided to go
downstairs and make a fuller examination of the means of defence.

"Everything seems to be as secure as it can be," he said, standing in
the middle of the room and looking around; "that door has already been
tried, and found not wanting. The only other means of entrance is
through the windows, and after Red Feather's experience I am sure
neither he nor any of his warriors will try _that_."

There were four windows--two at the front and two at the rear--all of
the same shape and size. There was but the single door, of which so much
has already been said, and therefore the lower portion of the building
could not be made safer.

The stone chimney, so broad at the base that it was more than half as
wide as the side of the outside wall, was built of stone, and rose a
half-dozen feet above the roof. It was almost entirely out of doors, but
was solid and strong.

"If the Indians were not such lazy people," said Melville--looking
earnestly at the broad fire-place, in front of which stood the
new-fashioned stove--"they might set to work and take down the chimney,
but I don't think there is much danger of _that_."

He had hardly given expression to the thought when he fancied he heard a
slight noise on the outside, and close to the chimney itself. He stepped
forward, and held his ear to the stones composing the walls of the
fire-place.

Still the sounds were faint, and he then touched his ear against them,
knowing that solid substances are much better conductors of sound than
air. He now detected the noise more plainly, but it was still so faint
that he could not identify it.

He was still striving hard to do so when, to his amazement, Dot called
him from above-stairs--

"Where are you, Mel? Is that you that I can hear crawling about over the
roof?"

CHAPTER FIVE

A STRANGE VISIT--OMINOUS SIGNS

Melville Clarendon went up the short stairs three steps at a time,
startled as much by the call of his sister as by anything that had taken
place since the siege of the cabin began.

As he entered the room he saw Dot sitting up in bed, and staring
wonderingly at the shivered window-glass, particles of which lay all
around.

"Oh, Mel!" said she, "papa will scold you for doing that; how came you
to do it?"

"It was the bad Indians who fired through the win