“Well, I guess there’s nothing we can do except wait,” Jack said, after he had slipped the bar back in its place.

“And that’s often the hardest work of all,” Stebbins declared. “That brother of yours is a very brave lad.”

“I’ll tell the world he is, and then some,” Jack agreed.

“He doesn’t know the meaning of fear,” Rex added.

“And to think that it was my weakness that’s the cause of it all,” Stebbins groaned.

Outside it was as dark as the proverbial pocket. For a moment Bob stood still and listened. A slight murmur as the tree tops swayed in the light wind was all the sound that reached his ears. Careful to make not the slightest noise, he crept around the corner of the cabin, keeping close to it until he reached the back. Here again he paused to listen. No sound came, and after a moment he continued. Perhaps fifteen minutes had passed when he once more stood by the front door.
234

Again and again he made the circuit, stopping every few feet to listen. Once he thought he heard a sound as of some object moving a little in front of him, but as he paused to listen, he decided that it had been only his imagination. Nearly an hour had passed since he had come out, and he had passed around the cabin many times, when, as he crept around the front right-hand corner, his foot struck something. Stooping down he felt about with his hand. A small pile of what felt like birch bark was lying close up against the corner.

“Now I wonder if that’s been there all the time,” he thought, as he straightened up. “I’ll just camp around this corner for a while,” he decided, as he sat down and leaned his back against the logs.

It seemed to him that he had sat there a long time, and he was thinking that he had better make another round of the cabin, when his sharp ears caught a slight sound. Instantly he was all attention, trying to pierce the darkness. He could, however, see nothing, but in a moment he again heard the same noise. Someone was creeping slowly and carefully toward the cabin. He crouched ready for a sudden spring. Suddenly he heard a scraping sound and instantly a match flared up. And then he sprang.
235

Bob was not more than four feet from the man, and he landed fairly on his shoulders. With a grunt of surprise the man went over backward, with Bob on top, trying his best to get a hold on his throat. After the first grunt, neither made a sound, save for their heavy breathing. Over and over they rolled, each trying in vain to get a decisive hold on the other. Once Bob secured a half Nelson, but the great strength of his antagonist served to break it. A moment later the man got a hold on Bob’s throat, and for an instant he thought he was done for, but, exerting all his strength, he managed to free one hand, and grasping the other’s wrist, he tore his hand away, just in time to save his breath. The man was breathing heavily, and Bob was encouraged to believe that he would get the better of him shortly, provided his friends did not come to his assistance.
236

The end came sooner than he had dared hope for. Feeling his chance, Bob succeeded in getting a hold, which he had learned some years previous, from a Jap friend at college. The hold was such that the man’s right arm was forced back from the elbow and he was helpless to free himself. Slowly, inch by inch, Bob bent the arm back, until finally he heard the bone snap. With a sharp cry of pain the man struggled to his feet as Bob released his hold and in an instant was lost in the darkness. Bob, fearing that he would be back with the others, quickly ran to the front door of the cabin and calling softly, was at once admitted.

“I thought I heard a noise like someone rolling about on the ground,” Jack said, as soon as he had barred the door.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you did,” Bob grinned.

“What happened?” Rex asked.

“Jacques and I had a little set to. That is, I think it was he, although it was so dark that I couldn’t be sure.” And he told them about the fight.

“I hated to break his arm, but it was he or I, and I was afraid that the others would hear us and come to his help,” he concluded.

“You don’t need to waste any sympathy on him,” Stebbins said, “they’re a bad lot and it would have been a mighty good job if you had killed him.”

“Now, I think the three of us had better go out together and hang around,” Bob proposed. “They’ve got another fire all ready to light, and they may do it, although I doubt it. Anyhow, we’d better be on the safe side. I reckon we won’t run much risk with one of them with a broken arm.”
237

Keeping close together, they circled the cabin until the first streaks of light appeared in the east, but they heard nothing from their enemies.

“Guess we’d better go inside,” Bob said; “they might take a shot at us as soon as it gets light enough to see.”

They acted on the suggestion none too soon, for just as Rex, who happened to be the last one in, stepped inside, a bullet whistled past his head and struck the wall at the back of the room.

“I heard that one sing all right,” he said, as he banged the door shut and slipped the bar in its place.

“Now we’ve got to watch mighty close at those peep holes,” Bob declared.

“And I, for one, don’t think we ought to hesitate to shoot if we see one of them trying to set fire to the place, not after that last shot,” Rex declared.

“I hardly think they’ll try it again,” Bob said. “I kicked all that stuff they had piled up away, and I don’t believe they’ll risk it again, now that it’s getting light.”

“Mebby not,” Jack broke in, but we’ll play it safe and not give ’em the chance.”

Rapidly the light increased, and soon they were able to see plainly for some distance.

“I wonder if they’ve got any more tricks up their sleeves,” Jack said, as he took his eye from the hole.
238

“I’ll say they have,” Bob replied almost immediately.

Even as he spoke a slight sound as of something striking on the roof was heard.

“What was that?” Rex asked.

“Just what I’ve been afraid of, a fire arrow,” Bob told him.

“What do you mean by that?” Rex asked anxiously.

“They’re trying to set fire to the roof by shooting arrows which they have wrapped with birch bark and smeared with pitch. It’s an old Indian trick.”

“But will the roof catch?”

“I’m afraid it will. It’s made of pretty light stuff, I suppose. Most of them are, but let’s hope that this one’s an exception.

“There’s another one,” Jack said a moment later, as a second thud sounded on the roof.

“Is there nothing we can do?” Rex asked.

“Not a thing so far as I can see, except hope and pray that it doesn’t catch,” Bob answered sadly.

“Hark!” Jack whispered, about five minutes later.

“What is it?” Bob asked.

“Don’t you hear it?”

“It’s caught sure as guns,” Bob declared, after listening intently.

“It sure has,” Jack agreed, “and by the sound it’s going in good shape.”
239

Bob moved about the room, stopping every few feet, to listen and cautioning the others to keep quiet.

“I think it’s right here,” he announced, pointing to the roof about half way down one side. Quick, now, get that table under here and make it snappy.”

Without waiting to question his intention Rex dragged the table to the place where Bob was standing, and in almost less than no time, as Jack would say, he was on a chair which he had placed on the table, hacking away at the roof with the axe.

As Bob had said, the roof was made of light material, covered with bark and moss, and he made short work of cutting through it, and he soon had a hole large enough to admit his head.

“Don’t you poke your head out of that hole,” Jack ordered.

“I’ve got to, so don’t argue, but hand me that box there—quick.”

“They’ll take a shot at you.”

“Not the first time they won’t. I’ll be too quick for them.”

Placing the box on the chair he was tall enough to be able to get his head through the opening. As he had hoped, the fire was only about a foot away.

“Hand me that small shovel,” he ordered, as he withdrew his head.
240

With the shovel he soon succeeded in beating out the blaze, but as he again looked out to make sure that it was out a bullet sang past his head, making him duck back quickly.

“I told you,” Jack said, as he jumped down.

“I know, but I got the fire out, although I don’t expect it will do much good.”

“How come?” Rex asked.

“They’ll have another one going in a minute, and it’ll be pretty risky to try that stunt again, as they’ll be on the watch.”

“It seems kinder funny to me that as many times as they have shot at us not a bullet has hit. I thought that all those fellows up here were dead shots,” Rex said.

&l............