d in everywhere by silence and
loneliness, whatever happened they must depend upon themselves, because
there was none to bring help. They might perish, one and all, and the
rest of the world not hear of it until long afterwards.

A moaning wind came up and sighed over the log houses, the younger
children--and few were too young not to guess what was expected--fell
asleep at last, but the older, those who had reached their thinking
years could not find such solace. In this black darkness their fears
became real; there was no false alarm, the forest around them hid their
enemy, but only for the time.

There was little noise in the station. By the low fires in the houses
the women steadily molded bullets, and seldom spoke to each other, as
they poured the melted lead into the molds. By the walls the men too,
rifle in hand, were silent, as they sought with intent eyes to mark what
was passing in the forest.

Lucy Upton was molding bullets in her father's house and they were
melting the lead at a bed of coals in the wide fireplace. None was
steadier of hand or more expert than she. Her face was flushed as she
bent over the fire and her sleeves were rolled back, showing her strong
white arms. Her lips were compressed, but as the bullets shining like
silver dropped from the mold they would part now and then in a slight
smile. She too had in her the spirit of warlike ancestors and it was
aroused now. Girl, though she was, she felt in her own veins a little of
the thrill of coming conflict.

But her thoughts were not wholly of attack and defense; they followed as
well him who had come back so suddenly and who was now gone again into
the wilderness from which he had emerged. His appearance and manner had
impressed her deeply. She wished to hear more from him of the strange
wild life that he had led; she too felt, although in a more modified
form, the spell of the primeval.

Her task finished she went to the door, and then drawn by curiosity she
continued until her walk brought her near the palisade where she watched
the men on guard, their dusky figures touched by the wan light that came
from the slender crescent of a moon, and seeming altogether weird and
unreal. Paul Cotter in one of his errands found her there.

"You had better go back," he said. "We may be attacked at any time, and
a bullet or arrow could reach you here."

"So you believe with me that an attack will be made as he said!"

"Of course I do," replied Pau