第85章 THE HAIR BUYER TRAPPED(6)

``Withdraw your men, Captain, from the north side.''

Captain Bowman departed.Whatever he may have thought of these orders, he was too faithful a friend of the Colonel's to delay their execution.Murmuring, swearing oaths of astonishment, man after man on the firing line dropped his rifle at the word, and sullenly retreated.The crack, crack of the Deckards on the south and east were stilled; not a barrel was thrust by the weary garrison through the logs, and the place became silent as the wilderness.It was the long hour before the dawn.And as we lay waiting on the hard ground, stiff and cold and hungry, talking in whispers, somewhere near six of the clock on that February morning the great square of Fort Sackville began to take shape.There was the long line of the stockade, the projecting blockhouses at each corner with peaked caps, and a higher capped square tower from the centre of the enclosure, the banner of England drooping there and clinging forlorn to its staff, as though with a presentiment.Then, as the light grew, the close-lipped casements were seen, scarred with our bullets.The little log houses of the town came out, the sapling palings and the bare trees,--all grim and gaunt at that cruel season.Cattle lowed here and there, and horses whinnied to be fed.

It was a dirty, gray dawn, and we waited until it had done its best.From where we lay hid behind log house and palings we strained our eyes towards the prairie to see if Lamothe would take the bait, until our view was ended at the fuzzy top of a hillock.Bill Cowan, doubled up behind a woodpile and breathing heavily, nudged me.

``Davy, Davy, what d'ye see!''

Was it a head that broke the line of the crest? Even as I stared, breathless, half a score of forms shot up and were running madly for the stockade.Twenty more broke after them, Indians and Frenchmen, dodging, swaying, crowding, looking fearfully to right and left.And from within the fort came forth a hubbub,--cries and scuffling, orders, oaths, and shouts.In plain view of our impatient Deckards soldiers manned the platform, and we saw that they were flinging down ladders.An officer in a faded scarlet coat stood out among the rest, shouting himself hoarse.Involuntarily Cowan lined his sights across the woodpile on this mark of color.

Lamothe's men, a seething mass, were fighting like wolves for the ladders, fearful yet that a volley might kill half of them where they stood.And so fast did they scramble upwards that the men before them stepped on their fingers.All at once and by acclamation the fierce war-whoops of our men rent the air, and some toppled in sheer terror and fell the twelve feet of the stockade at the sound of it.Then every man in the regiment, Creole and backwoodsman, lay back to laugh.The answer of the garrison was a defiant cheer, and those who had dropped, finding they were not shot at, picked themselves up again and gained the top, helping to pull the ladders after them.Bowman's men swung back into place, the rattle and drag were heard in the blockhouse as the cannon were run out through the ports, and the battle which had held through the night watches began again with redoubled vigor.But there was more caution on the side of the British, for they had learned dearly how the Kentuckians could measure crack and crevice.

There followed two hours and a futile waste of ammunition, the lead from the garrison flying harmless here and there, and not a patch of skin or cloth showing.