Our eyes began to smart painfully, and we felt ourselves suffocating
and choking in the thick and poisonous atmosphere.
To remain in the house was to be burned alive; to leave it was to
perish, perhaps, in a still more horrible way. Just as I was on the
brink of despair, the sergeant gasped rather than spoke:
"They are here, lieutenant. Hark! Hark!"
Ping! Ping! We heard the sound of rifle-shots, accompanied by a good,
honest, Anglo-Saxon cheer. Was there ever sweeter music?
The war-whoops ceased, the blanket was quickly withdrawn from the
chimney-top, and two thuds on the east side of the cabin showed the
Indians had left the roof. A general scurrying of feet and other thuds
down the perpendicular wall back of the spring were evidence that the
besiegers were in full and demoralized flight.
We threw the doors open, and our friends rushed in, and before a
greeting was uttered feet and butts of rifles were sweeping brands and
straw into the fireplace, and the roaring draught was fast clearing
the air.
Before I had fairly recovered my sight, and while still engaged in
wiping away the tears the smoke had excited to copious flow, I heard a
sobbing voice near me say:
"Oh, Franky, brother, if it had not been for dear little Vicky what
would have happened to you?"
Blinking my eyes open, I saw the boy corporals with their right arms
about each other's neck, holding their Spencers by the muzzles in
their left hands.
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