Ambrose gazed at her hungrily. She came to him straight and, offering him both her hands, looked deep into his eyes.

"Now tell me," she murmured.

This was the real Colina, simple as a child. Her eyes--the lamp being behind her--showed as deep and dark as the night sky.

Her lovely face yearned up to his, and Ambrose's self-command tottered again--but this was no moment for pa.s.sion. His voice shook, but his eyes were as steady as hers.

"I love you," he said quietly. "When you hated me most I was doing the best for you that I could. I--I'm afraid I sound like a prig. But it is the truth. I stood out against you when I thought you were wrong because I loved you!"

Her eyes fell. Her hands crept confidingly up his arms. "Ah! I want so to believe it," she faltered.

He thought he had won her again. His arms swept around her, crushing her to him. "My love!" he murmured.

She went slack in his arms and coldly averted her head. "Do not kiss me," she said.

He instantly released her.

"It's not the time," she murmured. "It seems horrible to-night. I--I am not ready. By what happens to-night I will know for always!"

"But, Colina--" he began.

She offered him her hand with a beseeching air. "I do not hate you any more," she said quickly. "You have a lot to forgive in me, too. Be merciful to me. Show me--to-night."

He drew a steadying breath. "Very well," he said. "I am contented."

CHAPTER XXV.

ACCUSED.

The long suspense wore terribly on the defenders of the house.

To wait inactive, listening to the frightful yelling and watching the play of the fire, not knowing at what moment yelling, bullets, and fire might be directed at themselves, was disorganizing to the stoutest nerves.

When the attack should come all knew that their refuge was more like a trap than a fortress. Ambrose wished to abandon the house for the Catholic church up the river.

This little structure was stoutly built of squared logs; moreover, it was possible that some lingering religious feeling might restrain the Indians from firing it.

The suggestion was received with suspicion. John Gaviller refused point-blank to leave his house.

As the hours pa.s.sed without any change in the situation they began to feel as if they could endure no more. They were almost ready to wish that the savages might attack them and have done with it.

They endlessly and vainly discussed what might be pa.s.sing in the red men's minds. Tole Grampierre, hearing this talk, offered to go and find out.

There was no danger to him, he said. Even if they should discover that he was not one of themselves, they had no quarrel with his people.

Ambrose let him go.

He never returned. Ambrose and Macfarlane helped him through the barbed wire, and he set off, making a wide detour behind the houses that faced the river, meaning to join the Indians from the other side.

Most of the Indians had for some time been engaged in rifling the warehouse, which adjoined the store behind.

Ambrose and Macfarlane, anxiously watching from the porch, heard a sudden outcry raised in this quarter, and saw a man come running desperately around the corner of the store, pursued by a howling dozen.

Ambrose knew the runner by his rakish, broad-brimmed hat and flying sash. His heart leaped into the race. Tole was gaining.

"Go it! Go it!" Ambrose cried.

Tole was not bringing his pursuers back to the big house, but led the way off to one side by the quarters. Only a few yards separated him from the all-concealing darkness.

"He's safe!" murmured Ambrose.

At the same moment half of Tole's pursuers stopped dead, and their rifles barked. The flying figure spun around with uptossed arms, and plunged to the ground.

Ambrose groaned from the bottom of his breast. Nerved by a blind rage, his own gun instinctively went up. He could have picked off one or two from where he stood. Macfarlane flung a restraining arm around him.

"Stop! You'll bring the whole mob down on us!" he cried. He looked at Ambrose not unkindly. The sacrifice of Tole obliged him to change his att.i.tude.

Ambrose turned in the door, silently grinding his teeth. At the end of the pa.s.sage he found a chair, and dropped upon it, holding his head between his hands.

The face of Tole as he had first beheld it--proud, comely, and full of health--rose before him vividly.

He remembered that he had said to himself then: "Here is one young, like myself, that I can make a friend of." And almost the last thing Tole had said to him was: "I am your friend."

It was his youth and good looks that made it seem most horrible.

Ambrose pictured the b.l.o.o.d.y ruin lying in the square, and shuddered.

Gordon Strange offered to go out in order to make sure that Tole was beyond aid. It seemed like a kindly impulse, but Ambrose suspected its genuineness.

Even from where they were, a glance at the huddled figure was enough to tell the truth. None of the others would hear of Strange's going.

Colina and Giddings pleaded with him. Gaviller forbade him. Strange with seeming reluctance finally gave in.

Whenever he witnessed such evidences of their trust in the half-breed Ambrose's lip curled in the darkness. He was more than ever convinced that Strange was a blackguard.

Evidence he had none, only his warning intuition, which, among the male s.e.x at least, is not considered much to go on.

It gave Ambrose a shrewd little twinge of jealousy to hear Colina begging this man not to risk his life by leaving the house.

About three o'clock it began to seem as if they might allow themselves to relax a little. The madness of the Indians had burned itself out.

There had not been enough whisky perhaps to maintain it for more than a few hours.

In any case, since the whites had been spared at the height of their fury, it seemed reasonable to hope they might escape altogether. The yelling had ceased.

Most of the men were now engaged in carrying flour and other goods down to the york boat. The watchers from the house wondered if they dared believe this signified an early departure.

As the tension let down it could be seen that John Gaviller was on the verge of a collapse. Colina strove with him to go to his room and rest on his bed.

He finally consented upon condition that she lay in her own room up-stairs. Colina and Gordon Strange half led, half carried the old man up-stairs.

Strange, returning, relieved Macfarlane's watch at the side door.

Macfarlane, Ambrose, Giddings, and Pringle lay down on the sofa and on the floor of the library.