f
a panic. Her unfailing instinct was hardening a new one, that ruled for
immediate flight.

Marylyn was working with her shoe-thongs, not stopping to thread them,
only to wind and tie them around her ankles. She heard her sister
exclaim. Then she was seized and brought forward by a trembling hand.
"Marylyn! Marylyn! The boat! She's going!"

They looked, and saw a black-funnelled bulk floating across the watery
strip mantled by the blaze.

"Maybe they thought it'd burn," suggested Marylyn. "See, there's sparks
flying that way."

Dallas leaned back against the door. "I guess--that's it," she said
slowly. Then after a moment, "But why didn't they bring her straight
across? There's no place to tie up downstream."

"Why, there's fire breaking out all over now," cried the younger girl,
forgetting to be afraid in her wonder and excitement. "See! One of the
little houses is caught!"

It was the first cabin of Clothes-Pin Row. Two or three men were near
it. At that distance they seemed gaily posturing to each other in a
dance.

"If anything _is_ wrong," Dallas said, "Mr. Lounsbury'll come back."

"Mr. Lounsbury!" repeated Marylyn. "Was he here?"

"On this side, by the grove. I saw him start for the Fort."

And so their going was delayed.

Nevertheless, Dallas' sense of coming danger was acute; and when, before
long, she heard the trumpet again, and saw the troopers fall away from
the pyres, leaving the flames to their work, she lit the lantern and
held it to where were stored her treasures--a lock of her mother's hair,
her father's pipe, the letter she had received from Lounsbury.

"You take the cartridge-belt," she called to Marylyn.

The other obeyed.

"Ready?" said Dallas, and lifted the lantern to shake it.

She got no reply. Instead, gasping in alarm, Marylyn came headlong to
her, pinioning her arms with wildly clinging ones. "Dallas! oh,
help----"

Outside there was a sound of rapid running. Dallas flung herself against
the door, driving it shut. A second, and a weight was hurled against the
outer battens. Then came four raps.

"Don't open! don't!" cried Marylyn. "Maybe it ain't Charley!"

But Dallas, undoubting, swung the door back, and into the room leaped a
stooping figure.

It _was_ The Squaw.

He crouched, and moved his head from side to side, as if expecting a
blow or a bullet from behind. His right hand held a bow; his left, a
bundle of arrows. With these he beckoned violently, shaking th