e
surrounding us. How I wished that Tom were home!

A stealthy sound began to intrude itself upon our ears. Listening
intently, I thought it came from the side of the cabin where the lean-to
was, where we stored our wood in winter. The black shadow fell on that
side, and into a patch of bushes; peering out of the loophole, I could
perceive nothing there. The noise went on at intervals. All at once
there grew on me, with horror, the discovery that there was digging
under the cabin.

How long the sound continued I know not,--it might have been an hour,
it might have been less. Now I thought I heard it under the wall, now
beneath the puncheons of the floor. The pitchy blackness within was such
that we could not see the boards moving, and therefore we must needs
kneel down and feel them from time to time. Yes, this one was lifting
from its bed on the hard earth beneath. I was sure of it. It rose an
inch--then an inch more. Gripping the handle of my tomahawk, I prayed
for guidance in my stroke, for the blade might go wild in the darkness.
Upward crept the board, and suddenly it was gone from the floor. I swung
a full circle--and to my horror I felt the axe plunging into soft flesh
and crunching on a bone. I had missed the head! A yell shattered the
night as the puncheon fell with a rattle on the boards, and my tomahawk
was gone from my hand. Without, the fierce war-cry of the Shawanees that
I knew so well echoed around the log walls, and the door trembled with a
blow. The children awoke, crying.

There was no time to think; my great fear was that the devil in the
cabin would kill Polly Ann. Just then I heard her calling out to me.

"Hide!" I cried, "hide under the shake-down! Has he got you?"

I heard her answer, and then the sound of a scuffle that maddened me.
Knife in hand, I crept slowly about, and put my fingers on a man's neck
and side. Next Polly Ann careened against me, and I lost him again.
"Davy, Davy," I heard her gasp, "look out fer the floor!"

It was too late. The puncheon rose under me, I stumbled, and it fell
again. Once more the awful changing notes of the war-whoop sounded
without. A body bumped on the boards, a white light rose before my eyes,
and a sharp pain leaped in my side. Then all was black again, but I had
my senses still, and my fingers closed around the knotted muscles of an
arm. I thrust the pistol in my hand against flesh, and fired. Two of us
fell together, but the thought of Polly Ann g