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"That's the most sensible idee that's been put forward," replied Jo Stinger, "and I shouldn't be s'prised if you was right; but somehow or other "
"By gracious! I smell smoke sure as yo's bo'n!"
Blossom Brown gave several vigorous sniffs before uttering this alarming exclamation, but the words had no more than passed his lips, when every man knew he spoke the truth.
There was smoke in the upper part of the block-house, and though it could not be seen in the darkness, yet it was perceptible to the sense of smell.
Consternation reigned for a few minutes among the garrison, and there was hurrying to and fro in the effort to learn the cause of the burning near them.
The most terrifying cry that can strike the ears of the sailor or passenger at sea is that of fire, but no such person could hold the cry in greater dread than did the garrison, shut in the block-house and surrounded by fierce American Indians.
The first supposition of Colonel Preston was that it came from the roof, and springing upon a chair, he shoved up the trap-doors, one after the other, to a dangerously high extent. But whatever might have happened to the other portions of the structure, the roof was certainly intact.
The next natural belief was that it was caused by the fire on the hearth in the lower story, and Colonel Preston and Blossom Brown made all haste down the ladder. Blossom, indeed, was too hasty, for he missed one of the rounds and went bumping and tumbling to the floor, where he set up a terrific cry, to which no attention was paid amid the general excitement.
"Here it is! Here's the fire!" suddenly shouted Ned Preston, in a voice which instantly brought the others around him.
Ned had done that wise thing to which we have all been urged many a time and oft: he had "followed his nose" to the north-east corner of the block-house, where the vapor was so dense that he knew the cause must be very near.
It so happened that this very nook was the least guarded of all. Looking directly downward through the holes cut in the projecting floor, his eyes smarted so much from the ascending vapor that he was forced to rub them vigorously that he might be able to see.
He could detect nothing but smoke for a minute or so, and that, of course, made itself manifest to the sense of smell and touch rather than to that of sight; but he soon observed, directly beneath his feet, the red glow of fire itself. Then it was he uttered the startling cry, which awoke Mrs. Preston and brought the rest around him.
Despite the care and skill with which the station had been guarded by the garrison, all of whom possessed a certain experience in frontier-life, the wily Wyandots had not only crept up to the block-house itself without discovery, but they had brought sticks, had piled them against the north-east corner, had set fire to them, and had skulked away without being suspected by any one of the sentinels.
The fact seemed incredible, and yet there was the most convincing evidence before or rather under their eyes. Jo Stinger gave utterance to several emphatic expressions, as he made a dash for the barrel of water, and he was entirely willing to admit that of all idiots who had ever pretended to be a sensible man, he was the chief.
But the danger was averted without difficulty. Two pails of water were carefully poured through the openings in the floor of the projecting roof, and every spark of fire was extinguished.
The water added to the density of the vapor. It set all the inmates
attempt to creep past the three Wyandots who were lying against the hank of the Licking, watching the block-house, now and then firing a shot at the solid logs, as if to express their wishes respecting the occupants of the building.
If the task was almost impossible at first, it soon became utterly so, as the young Shawanoe was compelled to admit. The contour of the bank was such that, after getting by the log, he would be compelled to approach the warriors so close that he could touch them with his outstretched hand. This would have answered at night, when they were asleep, but he might as well have attempted to lift himself through the air as to do it under the circumstances we have described.
Deerfoot never despaired nor gave up so long as he held space in which to move. He immediately repeated the retrograde motion he had used when confronted by the venomous serpent, his wish now being to return to the spot from which he fired the arrow.
The ventures made satisfied him that he had but one chance in a thousand of escaping capture and death. He could not move to the right nor left: it would have been certain destruction to show himself on the clearing, and equally fatal to attempt to use the shallow Licking behind him.
There was a remote possibility that the arrowy messenger which he had sent from his bow had not been noticed by any of the besieging Wyandots, and that, as considerable time had already passed, none of them would come over to where he was to inquire into the matter.