the bloodhounds, and we left the friendly Indians and
pressed on. We came upon this knoll on just such an evening as this--the
light in the west, and the stream very still, with a large white star
shining down upon it. We lay down beside it, and that night I slept
without a dream.... We have been here ever since, and here we shall stay
until we die."

"It is fair now," said Patricia, "but in a little while it will be
winter and very cold."

"Bitterly cold," said the woman. "The snow lies long in these hills, and
the wind howls down the ravine."

"And the wolves are bold in winter."

"Very bold. This scar upon my arm is from the teeth of one which I
fought here, on the very threshold."

"The Indians threaten always, summer or winter."

"Ay, sooner or later they will come against us. We shall die that way at
last. But what does it matter--so that we die together?"

The lady of the manor turned her pure, pale face upon the other with
wonder, and yet with comprehension, written upon it.

"You are happy!" she said, almost in a whisper.

"Yes, I am happy," the woman answered, a light that was not from the
faintly crimson west upon her face.

CHAPTER XXXII

ATTACK

About midnight, Landless, lying upon the dirt floor of the lean-to
attached to the one room of the cabin, felt a hand upon his shoulder and
opened his eyes upon a shadowy figure, blocking up the starlight that
came faintly in at the open door.

"Hist!" said the figure. "Ricahecrians!"

Landless sprang to his feet. "My God! You are sure?"

"They are coming out of the ravine. You will hear the whoop directly."

The owner of the hut, stirred by the Susquehannock's foot, started up.
Such an alarm being about the least surprising thing that could happen,
he kept his wits, and after the first intake of the breath and
exclamation of, "Indians!" he went about his preparations coolly enough.
Rushing into the cabin where Landless had already waked the women, he
groped for his tinder box, and with a steady hand struck a light and
fired a pine knot which he stuck into a block of wood pierced to receive
it; then jerked from the wall his musket and powder horn.

"You both have guns," he said coolly. "Good! We'll die fighting." The
woman had flown to the door, had seen that the heavy wooden bars were
drawn across it, and now stood beside him with a resolute face, and an
axe in her hands.

A moment of silence, and then the quiet night was cleft by th