class="x-ebookmaker-pageno" title="[Pg 53]"/> we have not one-tenth enough men to defend it properly. Not a man can be spared from here now, for it will be all we can do to save ourselves and all these women and children from massacre. Probably in a few days we shall have hundreds of troops from St. Paul and the East, and then we can go after these infernal red murderers and punish them and rescue their living victims. But, meantime, you must be prepared to stand with the rest of us in defending your mother and little sister. And I think you are a lad who will do your share." He glanced approvingly at Al's straight figure and steady eyes.

"I shall try to, sir," answered Al.

"I know you will," said the Lieutenant. "You had better go and help the men who are working on the storehouse."

He pointed to the building mentioned and then turned to several men who were waiting for him; while Al, very much downcast at his failure but still feeling a little more hopeful of Tommy's safety because of Lieutenant Sheehan's words, walked out again with Wallace.

CHAPTER III BESIEGED IN FORT RIDGELY

The remainder of that afternoon and the following night passed without serious alarms, but it was heavy with labor for the little garrison. The roofs of the storehouses and of the barracks for enlisted men were covered with earth to protect them against fire arrows, and their sides were loop-holed. Earth and log barricades were erected at various points overlooking the heads of ravines. Little could be done to protect the officers' frame quarters or the log stables and outbuildings, which lay, much exposed, at the western corner of the fort. Early in the evening Major Galbraith's Renville Rangers came into the fort, forty-five strong, weary with a twelve-hour forced march from St. Peter, where they had been overtaken by the courier sent to recall them. A large majority of these men remained loyal to their duty during the ensuing days but a few of them, their slumbering ferocity roused by the reports of the uprising of their savage kindred, skulked away and joined the hostiles, committing before they left an act of dastardly treachery. Several small cannon, in charge of the gallant Ordnance Sergeant John Jones, of the United States regular army, were placed in commanding positions in the fort, and that night a heavy chain guard was posted all around the place. But, though several false alarms were given, no Indians appeared, and the night passed in reasonable quiet. Mrs. Briscoe, still too overwhelmed with dumb grief to do more than mechanically comply with the arrangements made for her and Annie by Al and her friends, passed the night not uncomfortably in the hospitable but over-crowded home of the Smiths; and Al slept with a dozen men and boys, including Wallace, on the floor of the store below, his musket and revolver beside him.

The early part of the next day was spent like the one preceding it, in further strengthening the barricades and buildings, in cleaning weapons, and, beyond that, simply in endless discussion of the ghastly events of the past few days and uneasy speculation upon the future. Though many of the refugees would have gladly given all that remained of their shattered fortunes to get to St. Paul or some other place of assured security, the attempt was not to be thought of, for it was known that the hostiles were skulking all about the post and any party which might start out for the East would undoubtedly be set upon and destroyed. A few scattered survivors of the massacre continued to come in now and then, exhausted, famished, often wounded, and always nearly insane from the unnumbered perils and rigorous hardships through which they had passed. An attack on the fort was expected at any time, as Lieutenant Sheehan's words to Al had indicated, and the only cause for wonder was that it had not come sooner. Indeed, had the defenders but known it, Little Crow had been urgent in the councils of the Indians for an overwhelming assault on Fort Ridgely on the evening of the eighteenth, immediately after the bloody defeat of Captain Marsh's detachment. But some of his more cautious followers opposed the plan on the ground that many of the warriors were still out over the country, murdering settlers and destroying property, so that the full strength of their forces could not yet be brought against the fort. This view was eagerly sustained by the strong element among the hostiles who were opposed to the whole outbreak on principle, seeing in it nothing but ultimate disaster for their people, yet who did not dare openly to champion the cause of the whites for fear of being summarily dealt with by their more violent associates. This element hoped that a delay in the attack on the fort might enable the whites to gather a sufficient force there to repulse it when it should be made, and assuredly the delay had rendered it possible for the defenders to place the post in a much better state of defence by the afternoon of August 20 than it had been two days before.

It was about one o'clock on that hot, still afternoon when Al and Wallace stepped out of the Smiths' store, having just finished their dinner. They were about to start over to the storehouse of the fort, where some work was still being done, when Wallace noticed a loose horse wandering down into one of the ravines not far from the store.

"That's one of our horses," he exclaimed. "He must have slipped his halter. If he goes far the Indians will catch him. Come on; let's get him!"

Followed by Al, he dashed into the stable for a halter and then started on a run for the ravine. The latter was quite wide and thickly fringed with bushes and small trees, while the bottom of it was carpeted with luxuriant grass, which the horse was nibbling as they came up. But their appearance startled him and with a snort he leaped past them and galloped on some distance further, when he again halted. The boys followed, Wallace this time approaching more diplomatically and saying in a soothing tone,

"Come, Frank; come boy! Nice boy!"

"He'll give you a jolt in the ribs if you get too close," warned Al, as he noticed the animal begin to edge his hind feet around in the direction of Wallace.

But Frank was not so mischievous as he looked; for in a moment Wallace had the halter on his head and the boys were just about to turn again up the ravine toward the fort, when, without the least warning, there sprang from the bushes not ten yards behind them two Indian warriors, dressed only in breech-clouts and both armed with bows and arrows. Uttering not a sound they sprang toward the boys with the evident intention of taking them alive. Al and Wallace were too dumbfounded to move until the Indians were almost upon them. Then Wallace dropped the horse's halter and, catching up a heavy stick lying at his feet, hurled it at the head of one of the warriors. It caught the savage fairly across the face and he reeled for an instant from the force of the blow, while his companion, somewhat daunted, halted also. The boys ran at full speed up the ravine, not even pausing to note the effect of Wallace's throw, which he afterward admitted had found its mark by pure accident. They had gone but a few yards when an arrow whizzed past Al's head and struck in the ground in front of them. They only ran the faster. A half-dozen more arrows flew by them and then Wallace uttered a cry of pain as one struck him fairly in the left arm. But by this time, fortunately, they were at the head of the ravine and only a few feet from the nearest buildings. Al stole a glance behind