s of their guns through the loopholes and fired
pointblank, without aiming, at the band of men that had stealthily
crept upon them from behind while the truce negotiations had been
going on.

They were barely thirty yards away, and coming fast, but the
withering hail of lead that greeted them crumpled their front line
as though it were made of paper. The others, unable to see their
assailants, wavered a minute, and then broke, with the exception
of one man.

"Hold your fire!" was the order, and the fleeing trappers gained
the woods unmolested.

Not so the brave Indian who came on. There was nothing of retreat
in his make-up. He had started to charge the fort, and take it.
The fort was still untaken, and he was still alive--two things that
seemed utterly incongruous to his mind.

"Don't fire," said McTavish.

On the man came, amid absolute silence. He was at the wall of the
fort when suddenly Donald rose to his full height, flung up both
arms, and yelled at the top of his voice--the familiar manner of
stopping a pursuing wild animal. The Indian, instinctively taken
aback, halted, and Donald reached over and drew the gun out of the
unresisting hand, while a roar of laughter went up. This was too
much for the brave, who, with a fearful curse, drew his knife, and
cleared the fort wall at a bound. But he died in mid air, for
Donald, quicker than he, had swung the man's own musket by the
barrel, and brought it down with all his strength upon the fur-covered
head. Instantly, a howl went up from the forest, followed by a
volley, which McTavish avoided by the speed of his drop into the
trench. But others who had been watching were careless, and did
not fare so well. Two of the men, one of them old Bill Thompson,
dropped dead in their tracks. The man who had been badly wounded
in the first fatalities was now out of his misery, and there remained
but seven to guard the furs, and the honor of the Hudson Bay Company.
The snow inside the barricade was stained with blood.

[Illustration: Donald, quicker than he, had swung the man's own
musket by the barrel, and brought it down with all his strength
upon the fur-covered head.]

But there was no time now to sentimentalize. The dead were passed
along from hand to hand and piled at one end, the brave Indian
among them. Buxton had lost considerable blood, but he was cheerful,
and Timmins whistled continually. Another man had a ball in his
left shoulder, and a third had had his