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We have done. Quick kistayetak!" He darted back over their trail, followed by the Cree. There would be no truce now! It was WAR. He was glad that he had come with Kaskisoon. Two hundred yards back in the forest they met Philip and Adare at the head of their people. "They were coming to ambush us when we entered the clearing!" shouted Jean. "We drove them back. Four fell under our bullets.
"Renault and the other runners will have had more than four hours. They will have visited a dozen cabins on the trap-lines. Pierre reached old Kaskisoon and his Swamp Crees in two hours. They love Josephine next to their Manitou. The Indians will be there to a man!" Philip did not reply. But his heart beat like a drum at the sureness and triumph that thrilled in the half-breed's voice.
The place is still full of the devils, M'sieur!" "It will be impossible to rush the doors," cried Philip, seeing the gathering madness in John Adare's face. "We must fight with caution, Mon Pere! We cannot throw away lives. Divide our men. Let Jean take twelve and you another twelve, and give Kaskisoon his own people. That will leave me ten to batter in the doors.
Swiftly Philip turned and looked to the left. Kaskisoon and his braves were advancing upon the Nest with the elusiveness of foxes. At first he could not see them. Then, as Adare's voice boomed over the open, they rose with the suddenness of a flight of partridges, and ran swift-footed straight in the face of the windows. Thus far the game of the attackers had worked without flaw.
Two logs for eight men each. And you others fill your pockets with birch bark and spruce pitch-knots. Let no man touch fire to a log until we have Josephine. Then, burn! And you, Kaskisoon, go ahead and watch what is happening!" He was calmer now. As the men turned to obey his commands he laid a hand on Philip's shoulder. "I told you this was coming, Boy," he said huskily.
And with the Missioner had come Ladue, the Frenchman, who could send a bullet through the head of a running fox at two hundred yards four times out of five. Kaskisoon and his Crees had not arrived, and Philip knew that Jean was disappointed. "I heard three days ago of a big caribou herd to the west," said Janesse in answer to the half-breed's inquiry. "It may be they have gone for meat."
And the waiting men were silent deadly silent as they listened. For they knew that the low Te-dum was the call to death. Their hands gripped harder at the barrels of their guns, and when Kaskisoon and his braves came from behind the rock they faced the smoke above the Devil's Nest, wiped their eyes to see more clearly, and followed John Adare down into the plain.
From under his blanket-coat the chief brought forth the thing that had bulged there, a tom-tom. Philip and the waiting men heard then the low Te-dum Te-dum Te-dum of it, as Kaskisoon turned his face first to the east and then the west, north and then south, calling upon Iskootawapoo to come from out of the valley of Silent Men and lead them to triumph.
And now up from behind them came Jean Jacques Croisset and his men, firing blindly at the loopholes, and enveloping the men along the log in those last thirty yards that meant safety from the fire above. And behind him came John Adare, and from the south Kaskisoon and his Crees, a yelling, triumphant horde of avengers now at the very doors of the Devil's Nest!
He had drawn back the hammer of his rifle. At the click of it Kaskisoon moved. He looked at the half-breed. His breath came in a low monosyllable of understanding. Over the top of the windfall he poked the barrel of his gun. Then he looked again at Jean. And Jean turned. Their eyes met. They were eyes red and narrowed by the beat of storm. Jean Croisset knew what that silence meant.
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