Joe stood still, studying the smoke and trying to analyze its meaning. Fear tugged at his heart, and his lips had gone dry. He could see only the smoke, and it was not a forest fire because it was not traveling. Winterson would hardly be burning brush at this season, either. The obvious answer was that Winterson's house itself was burning, but why? Was it an accidental fire? Or had the Indians, whom Major Dismuke respected and Winterson scorned, finally attacked? Joe walked back into the clearing and turned to look nervously at the forest. If the Indians were on the warpath, they would come from the woods.

He felt and checked a rising fright. Whatever the situation was, it must be met coolly. Panic would help nothing. Joe entered the house and Emma, cooking breakfast for the rest of the family, looked questioningly at him.

"There's things afoot," Joe said quietly. "I think Winterson's house is burning and Indians might have set it. We'd better get ready for whatever it is."

Horror was reflected in Emma's face. "That poor woman!"

Ellis still slept outside and he had not yet come in. Joe went to his bed and shook his shoulder.

"Ellis."

Ellis, who had a happy faculty for coming awake all at once, opened his eyes and sat up.

"What do you want, Joe?"

"Things might be stirring. I believe the Wintersons' house is burning and we'd better be ready for visitors. Come on in."

"Right away."

Ellis sat up beneath his blankets and started pulling on his clothes. Joe formulated a plan of action. The house was a strong fortress, and all the grass for a hundred yards on every side had been mowed. Tad was a crack shot and Ellis was good, and anyone with the wrong ideas who came in range would have reason to regret it. Joe went back into the house. His eyes shining with excitement, Tad accosted him.

"Are they comin', Pa? Are they really comin'?'

"I don't know. But get your rifle ready."

"It's all ready!"

Barbara asked anxiously, "Is Ellis coming?"

"He'll be right in. Come on, everybody. Get everything that will hold water and fill it."

They filled the buckets, Emma's pots and pans, and even some of the dishes and stored them in Joe's and Emma's bedroom. Joe went to the garden, and filled a basket with lettuce, radishes, onions, and peas. He put the filled basket in the pantry along with the food already stored there and Ellis came in with his arms full of firewood. He dropped it into the wood box. Now, in the event of a siege, they had water, food and fuel.

Barbara and Emma were nervous, but not so nervous that they were unable to discharge their tasks efficiently. Ellis and Tad, except for Tad's excitement, seemed to grasp the situation and the younger children, not understanding, were merely curious. Joe fought his own rising nervousness.

"Bring Mike in the house," he instructed Tad, "and watch him carefully. If he growls, barks, or even bristles, watch for whatever might be." To Ellis he said, "Watch the dog. Keep the kids down and make the rounds of every window. Pay very close attention to the rear; they'll likely come from the woods if they come at all. If they do, both of you shoot—and shoot straight. I'll be back as soon as I can get here."

There was a rising note of alarm in Emma's voice, "Where are you going?"

He said quietly, "To find out if the Wintersons are in trouble and help them if they are. Don't anybody stir outside the house until we know just what it is."

Ellis said quickly, "You stay here, Joe. I'll go."

Barbara paled, but said, "Let him go, Daddy."

Joe hesitated, but only for a moment. His children deserved a chance, and Barbara was going to be married within the week. Barbara and Ellis were young and the world was theirs. Ellis, Joe felt, would help take care of Emma and the children if he didn't get back. Besides he was older. He'd picked up a few tricks that Ellis didn't know. Joe said,

"It's no time for fussing. I'm going."

Emma said worriedly, "You be careful, Joe."

"I will, and don't you fret about me. Likely I'll bring the Wintersons back."

"I will, and I want to tell you again not to worry. King can outrun any Indian pony. Now remember, stay in the house, keep your eyes open, and fight if you must. I won't be gone long."

Rifle in his hands, hatchet at his belt, Joe left the house and closed the massive door behind him. He listened for the wooden bar to fall in place, and after he heard it drop he started toward the stable. They'd built it down the slope, far enough from the house so that stable odors would not be offensive but near enough to defend. Anyone who tried to get into the stable would be within rifle range. Joe swerved to lock Emma's chickens in their coop and he scooped the piglet up under one arm. The pig had only a rail fence enclosure; there had been no time to build a house for him.

The mules looked questioningly around and Ellis's horse nickered a welcome. The placid cow chewed calmly on hay, and Joe put the piglet down. It scooted into the cow's stall and hid beneath the manger. Joe bridled Ellis's horse but did not saddle it. He was used to riding bareback and he preferred to ride that way. Joe led the horse from the stable and bolted the door.

For a moment he stood still and a faint smile curled the corners of his mouth as the incongruity of the situation occurred to him. He, Joe Tower, was riding forth to help repel Indians. For some reason he remembered Bibbers Townley and his fancied fight with the eight Apaches in Arizona, and he wondered what Bibbers would be doing if he were here right now. Probably, Joe guessed, he would be riding as fast as possible toward Camp Axton.

Joe would have been happy if Jim Snedeker was here for Jim would have known exactly what to do. That, Joe had to admit, was more than he knew. He had come to Oregon to farm, not to fight Indians. But if they were attacking he'd have to fight them, and Joe was an experienced hunter who knew how to skulk through brush. If necessary, he would abandon the horse and take to the woods, and he wasn't sure that Ellis would do that if he had ridden to help the Wintersons. Joe pondered the best method of reaching their place.

He'd never been to their house, but now he wished mightily that he had visited it because there might be a short cut. He was riding a horse, and horses do not have to stay on trails. But all Joe knew was what Winterson had told him; he'd built where his wagon broke down the sixth time. It stood to reason, therefore, that he had built beside the Oregon Trail and the surest way to find his house was by riding down that. Joe urged Ellis's horse into a gallop.

The trees on both sides were deceptively peaceful, as though nothing violent could possibly occur here. But not too far away a man and woman who had traveled three thousand miles in order to find new hopes and new dreams were seeing them go up in smoke. The horse slowed a bit and Joe urged him again.

He rounded a bend and saw the approaching team. They were Winterson's big white and the smaller horse, and they were being driven at full gallop by Martha Winterson, who, somehow, still managed to hold her precious hen. Winterson crouched on the wagon seat, rifle in hand and looking backward. Trailing the wagon by a few yards ran an unhampered black horse. Without breaking astride, Joe swung his own mount around the onrushing team and fell in behind.

"Keep them moving!" he shouted. "We're all ready for you!"

He said no more because this was not the time to talk, but now he knew. Major Dismuke had known what he was talking about when he spoke of hostiles. The plume of smoke, the racing team, the fury on Winterson's face, and the blood on his arm, were ample proof that the Wintersons had been attacked. Joe glanced backward down the Trail, as though he expected to see warriors pounding in pursuit, but he saw nothing.

Expertly, Martha Winterson turned her racing team from the Trail and into the meadows. She brought them to a plunging halt. The black horse, rolling frightened eyes, edged very close to Joe as though it sought his protection. Ellis, Barbara and Emma came from the house, and Emma took charge of Martha Winterson.

"Are you all right?"

"Of course I'm all right!" Martha's eyes were blazing too. "I'm not going to faint on you or anything like that! Oh, I'm so glad I could bring my hen along!"

"Well, you just come right in the house! We have everything we need there and the men will be along!"

Winterson, Joe and Ellis unhitched the team and led them to the stable. The black horse followed and crowded in as soon as the door was open. They put the mules in one stall and two horses in each of the others. Ellis filled the mangers with hay and Joe turned to Winterson.

"What happened?"

"They came at dawn!" Winterson said savagely. "The hen started cackling and woke me up! I saw this one looking in the window and threw the first thing I could lay my hands on at him! Happened to be the chamber pot! Time I got my hands on my rifle, he was gone! I took Martha with me, and time we got harnessed there were more of the skunks in the woods! They nicked me in the arm and we were gone!"

"Did they have horses?"

"Probably they had some somewhere! I suppose they left them back in the woods when they came to get us! Yes, there must have been horses! These Indians are too blasted lazy to walk anywhere! I got off one shot, but think I missed!"

"How many are there?"

"I saw anyhow six, but there are more than that! Blasted mongrels probably wouldn't fight at all unless they were anyhow fifteen to one! Wish I'd had another rifle! I—There's three of us now! Let's go back and tear into them!"

Joe said gently, "Leave the women and kids here unprotected?"

"You're right! Guess you're right! It's just that I'm so lashing mad I'd do about anything! I'm never going to like an Indian again if I live to be five hundred years old!"

"They burned your buildings. I saw the smoke."

"That's probably why they weren't hot on our trail; they were too busy looting! I suppose they got my cow and pigs too, but I saved the horses and Martha got her hen out. That's some hen! I wouldn't swap her for a farm!"

"Better come up and get a dressing on that arm."

"Just a scratch," Winterson assured him. "It doesn't amount to anything. What are we going to do now? Send somebody to Camp Axton to bring the soldiers?"

"Too dangerous," Joe decided. "One man alone could be ambushed and we have four rifles now. We'd better figure on making a stand right here."

"Who's the fourth rifle?"

"Tad, and he'll be a good one. That kid can shoot the whiskers off a cat at a hundred yards. Did you bring plenty of bullets?"

"Just what's in my pouch. We didn't have time to grab as much as we'd have liked."

"Well, we have lead and molds. We can rig a mold to fit your rifle. Let's go in before the womenfolk decide we've all been scalped."

Still more angry than frightened, Martha Winterson had taken Carlyle on her lap and was relating the story of the raid. Barbara and Emma listened closely, while the three younger children stood silently near. Too young to appreciate exactly what had happened, they knew it was something out of the ordinary and they digested it as such. A look of eager excitement on his face, Tad was sitting in front of the fireplace melting lead in a ladle and molding bullets for his rifle.

"That's enough," Joe ordered. "Leave some lead for the rest of us."

"But what if there's a whole mob of them?"

"Everybody still has to shoot."

Martha rose and, despite her swollen body, there was a supple grace about her as she moved across the floor to her husband.

"Now I'll fix that arm, Henry," her voice was faintly apologetic. "There wasn't time to do it before."

She unbuttoned his shirt, removed it, and bared the bloody arm. The bullet had torn through one side, missing the big muscle and the artery, and leaving only a flesh wound. Martha washed the dried blood away and put a cold compress over the still-bleeding wound.

"Would you have some whisky?" she appealed to Joe. "This should really be sterilized."

"Don't have a drop," Joe admitted. "I didn't bring any."

"I did," Emma announced. She reached into her trunk, brought out a brown bottle, and glanced aside at Joe. "I brought it for emergencies only."

"Thank you, Emma." Martha Winterson pursed her lips, dampened one side of her cloth with whisky, and said, "Now this may sting a little."

While her husband gritted his teeth and made a face, she applied the antiseptic. "The bullet wasn't that bad!"

"Now don't be a baby," Martha chided. "You won't feel it in a little while."

"Probably won't be able to feel anything," he grumbled.

Martha applied a clean bandage and Henry put his shirt back on. He wandered restlessly to look out of a front window. Anger flared in his face. Henry Winterson cherished his house. Nobody was going to destroy it and go unpunished.

"Wish they'd come," he said nervously. "Wish they would. The day I left Vermont my brother Enos said, 'Henry, what are you going to do if Indians attack?' Those were his very words. That's exactly what he said to me. 'If the Indians attack,' I said, 'I'm going to shoot them dead in their tracks.' And by gosh, I didn't. But I aim to."

Joe said worriedly, "You might get a chance soon enough."

This was not real, he thought curiously. It was a charade that all of them were acting out, and as soon as they were finished acting the Wintersons would hitch their horses and go home. Jim Snedeker might have waited in a house such as this one while Indians prepared to attack it, but such things did not happen to Joe Tower. Then he reminded himself forcibly that they were happening to Joe Tower. A cold shiver ran through him.

"Hey, Pa!" Tad breathed. "Look at Mike!"

The dog was standing very still, ears alert and nose questing. He moved a step, as though to verify some elusive message that was reaching him faintly. His hackles rose and a low growl rumbled in his throat. He was looking toward the rear of the house, and when a door was opened for him he padded into a back bedroom. At the same time they heard the crack of a rifle and a sodden "splat" as a bullet thumped into an outer log.

Joe's fear and nervousness departed and he knew only a terrible, white-hot anger. This was his house. He had built it with his own hands and now it was threatened. At all costs he must avert that peril. No enemy could enter. Rifle ready, Joe peered through one of the rear windows.

He could see nothing except the mowed swath, the tall grass beyond, and the green trees on top of the hill. It was as though a real bullet had been fired by a ghost. Then the tall grass rippled slightly. Winterson leveled his rifle through another window, shot, and the grass stopped rippling.

"What'd you shoot at?" Joe queried.

"I didn't see any Indian," Winterson assured him, "but you don't see the critters. Still, that grass wasn't moving itself."

"Think you got him?"

"Nah," Winterson said sadly. "I don't think so. We'll—"

"Joe!"

There was cold fear in Emma's voice, and when Joe moved to the front of the house he saw the women looking out. Across the creek and up on the opposite slope, sixteen Indians stood in the meadow. There was something insultingly contemptuous about them as they either leaned on their long rifles or held them in their hands. They were dressed in buckskin save for one who wore a black suit that probably had been plundered from some settler. Of the rest, some wore fringed shirts and some were naked from the waist up. They stood so openly because they were out of rifle range and knew it.

Henry Winterson breathed, "There they are!"

He rested his rifle across a window sill, took an interminable time to sight, and squeezed the trigger. One of the sixteen jerked awkwardly, as though he had stepped on something that slipped beneath his foot, and sat awkwardly down. The rest ran back into the shelter of the woods, and after a moment the wounded man rose to follow. There was a savage satisfaction in Winterson's voice.

"Winged me one anyhow! Wish I'd killed him!"

"How high did you hold on him?" Joe asked.

"About a foot over his head. Still probably caught him too low down. Wish I'd given it another foot!"

There came five quick shots from behind the cabin. Ellis took two slow forward steps, turned to smile at the others, and managed only a fatuous grin. Blood bubbled down the side of his head, giving his hair a seal-sleek look and reddening his cheek. Joe caught him as he slumped backward while Winterson plucked the rifle from his hand. Barbara gasped and knelt beside her lover.

Her face was pale and terrible fear and shock glittered in her eyes. But there was hot anger in them too as she took Ellis's head tenderly on her lap while his blood reddened her skirt. Emma came with a cold compress and Barbara took it from her hand. Her voice was dull and trembling, but at the same time she showed her inner strength.

"Let me do it, Mother."

She applied the compress to Ellis's head while she bent tenderly over him. Barbara, who had always hidden when anything she liked was hurt, rose to the occasion when one she loved was injured. Joe said awkwardly,

"Let's move him to a bed."

And Barbara said fiercely, "Leave him alone!"

She sopped up the bubbling blood and Emma brought her a clean compress. Joe, Winterson and Tad went to the rear, but again all they saw was the mowed area, the tall grass and the forest. Up in the forest one of the attackers shouted, probably advice to someone on the opposite hill. Joe furrowed his brow.

They were doing things wrong, with everybody rushing to wherever an Indian appeared. That left three walls unguarded all the time, and they must inject some system into their defense. Besides, there was another and very deadly peril that could be lessened. No bullet could tear through the logs, but one might penetrate the chinking or the windows.

Joe called, "Emma, get the kids on the floor, will you? You womenfolk had better get there, too. Lie behind the sill log and you can't get hit."

Emma said, "I'll get them down."

"We'd better do things a little differently, too. Tad, you watch the north side. Henry, do you want the front or the rear?"

"The front for me!" Winterson bit his words off and spat them out. "They might have another pow-wow and I know I can reach 'em the next time. How about the south wall?"

"One of us'll have to slide over there now and again to watch."

Barbara said steadily, "Mother, will you bring me a pillow?"

Emma brought it and, very gently, Barbara transferred Ellis's bandaged head from her lap to the pillow. She stood and for a long moment looked down at him while Ellis moaned fretfully and moved. Then she took his rifle and went to the south wall.

"Bobby!" Joe protested.

"Ellis showed me how to shoot, Daddy, and I will."

Joe looked vexedly at her but said nothing. The children lay prone on the living-room floor, curled tightly against the bottom log. But Emma and Martha Winterson sat quietly at the table. These women had men defending the cabin. If one of the men needed help suddenly, they did not want first to have to get up from the floor. Joe took his post at a rear window.

He had disposed his force in what he considered the wisest fashion. When the Indians came, as he was sure they would come, it would probably be out of the forest at the rear and down the slope. It was right that Joe should be there to draw at least their first fire. This was his house; he was the one to defend it. Joe worried about Barbara and Tad, but the least likelihood of attack was from either side. Winterson was well placed in front. He had already proved his ability to gauge distance and to hit what he aimed at.

Out in the mowed area, a grasshopper took lazy wing and settled fifteen feet from where it had started. A robin that probably had been sitting on the house swooped on the insect and bore it away. Gophers scurried back and forth, and a crow alighted in the field. The fields hadn't changed and the day was like any day. It was hard to believe that, just beyond the mowed area, lay men who would kill everyone in the house if they were able to do so. Joe's eyes roved the tall grass farther up the slope. He concentrated on one place.

He thought he saw the grass sway there. It moved ever so slightly, then was still. Joe relaxed taut muscles. He had never shot at another man with the intent to kill and until now he had considered himself incapable of doing so. But the terrible anger still had him in its grip and he could kill these men. The grass moved again, and Joe knew without a doubt that there was something in it that should not be. He stepped back, sighted and shot. A crawling Indian threw himself upward so that his whole torso was revealed and fell back. The grass stopped moving.

"Did you get him?" Tad called excitedly. "Did you get him, Pa?"

"I don't think so."

He tried to keep his voice calm, but it was taut and strained. He felt surging joy because he had killed one of the enemies who had come to destroy them. He remained too much the civilized man to speak of that to his son.

"I thought I heard a shot!"

The bloody bandage contrasting oddly with his dark hair, Ellis was sitting up. For a moment he did not move, but stared at something that only he saw. Plowing a furrow beside his head, the bullet had shocked him into unconsciousness. Leaving her post, Barbara knelt and put her arms around him.

"Ellis! Lie down!"

"I—Bobby! Where did you come from?"

"Please lie down!"

"I—Oh! I know now!"

Her arm remained about him as he rose to shaky feet, swayed and recovered his balance. He reached up with one hand to push the bandage a little farther up his head and looked wonderingly at the blood on his fingers. He said, as though that were an astonishing thing,

"They nicked me!"

Emma and Martha Winterson hovered anxiously about, and Joe said, "Better stay down, Ellis."

"I—I'm all right now. Bobby, my rifle!"

She choked back a sob. "Ellis, no!"

"I'm all right now. I'll watch the south wall."

She said determinedly, "We'll both watch the south wall," and she stood very close beside him in the event that he needed her suddenly.

Time dragged on. Rifle cradled in his arm, Winterson came back to stand beside Joe. He peered at the tall grass.

"See anything?"

"Nothing's moved for a couple of hours. Do you think they've gone?"

"No, I don't," Winterson declared. "They don't like hot lead and they aren't going to expose themselves to it. They're out in the brush cooking up some new kind of deviltry. When they get it cooked, they'll serve it to us."

"They might try something, but I doubt it. There's some heathenish nonsense about their having to die in the daylight so they can see their way to the spirit land. But—and I'll bet on it—we haven't seen the last of them. Think one of us should try slipping out to Camp Axton tonight?"

"It's a pretty long chance, what with so many of them being out there. We can hang on for one more day. The day after tomorrow's the fifteenth, and the chaplain and some soldiers are coming from Axton anyway. No sense in being foolish if we don't have to."

"That makes sense," Winterson conceded. "Well, I'll go rest my eyes on some of your scenery again. Might get a shot."

All through the long afternoon nothing appeared, and the women prepared and served dinner in the last lingering hour of twilight. They ate, while the embers of the dying fire cast a ghostly glow into the room. Again Joe wondered if this were actually real. None of it fitted his preconceived notions of an Indian fight, with bullets flying thick and fast and deeds of derring-do. So far not a dozen shots had been fired.

Then he glanced soberly at Ellis's bandaged head. It was real enough.

They took the mattresses from the beds and laid them on the floor. Sleepy, and somewhat bored, the children curled up where bullets could not reach them. Joe walked back to his post at the window, and he saw a thin sickle of a moon hanging as though from invisible wires in the sky. It shed a faint light, and Joe stiffened when he saw an Indian crawling up to the cabin. But closer scrutiny proved that it was only a shadow.

"Haven't seen a thing!" Tad wailed. "Do you suppose they'll come tonight, Pa?"

"I don't know. Hadn't you better knock off for a while and get some sleep?"

Winterson called softly, "Joe."

Joe went to the front of the house, and down at the stable he saw a flickering, tiny light. It grew, and within seconds it was a leaping fire. Joe felt his body grow taut, and fury mounted to new heights. But he could do nothing except stand helplessly by and watch.

"The stock won't be there," Winterson assured him. "The devils'll run that off with them."

"I—" Joe gritted.

"I know what you're thinking. You don't have to say it."

They watched the fire grow and heard its crackling, and the entire space between the house and stable was lighted by it. Sparks floated skyward and winked out. Fire broke through the shake roof, and transformed it into seething, liquid flame. Then the roof fell in and there was a vast shower of sparks.

"They're real playful," Winterson commented. "Real nice people."

"Where's the wagon?" Joe asked.

"What did you say?"

"They've taken the wagon!"

Winterson grunted, "They'll take anything they can lay their hands on."

Joe walked back to the rear window and stared into the darkness. He had not slept but he was not sleepy. Flaring rage still consumed him, and he peered intently at every shadow.

The slow hours of the night dragged endlessly. Dawn came softly and Tad called,

"Pa."

"Yes?"

"There's the wagon."

Joe peered past his son's shoulder. Far up the valley, hopelessly out of rifle shot, the wagon's canvas top was sharply white in the lightening morning. Mounted Indians were pulling it with ropes, and Joe felt sick to his stomach. This was the wagon that had brought them all the way from Missouri, over prairie, hills, rivers and mountains. This was the wagon that had been their home. Now it was stuffed full of hay from the haystack, and the raiders must have worked all night to get where it was. Now all they had to do was drag it up the slope, find a position directly behind the house, set the hay on fire and send the wagon rolling down. Without exposing a man they could burn the house, and its defenders would be at their mercy.

Winterson and Ellis came to stand beside Joe, and they looked at this thing that could not be but was. The wagon turned and stalled sidewise and Joe's heart gave a great leap. But the Indians righted it again, kicking savage heels into their mounts' ribs as they forced them to pull. Slowly the wagon moved up the hill. Joe swallowed a hard lump in his throat. He looked at Emma and the children, and at Martha Winterson, and strode grimly to the rear of the house.

The wagon did not appear, and for a moment he cherished the wild hope that it had broken a wheel or become snagged in the trees, and that the Indians would be unable to move it. The sun rose, warming the meadow, and still Joe stared up the hill. After an eternity he saw what he had prayed he would not see. The upper third of the wagon's canvas top was silhouetted against the trees, and smoke was pouring from it. Joe turned to find Winterson and Ellis at his elbow.

He said vaguely, "It might miss the house."

But he knew that it would not. The besiegers had their one great opportunity and they would not waste it.

Joe's hand tightened around the breech of his rifle, and for a second he thought he must have shot. But the shot came from the top of the hill, near the wagon, and it was followed by a volley that was in turn followed by the barking of revolvers.

They waited, wondering, and after fifteen minutes, while the burning wagon continued to smoke, they saw the horsemen come down the hill. They were nine men, riding at a walk, and they herded Joe's mules and Ellis's and Winterson's horses ahead of them.

Joe breathed, "God Almighty!"

It was a prayer, not a curse, and he flung the door open to go out and meet these horsemen who had appeared so providentially.

"Told you I'd come!" Sergeant Dunbar called. "Told you I'd come as soon as my hitch was up! I brought a wagon train through with me and they told us at Camp Axton that you were here. We smelled smoke and figured the rest."

His arm around Martha, Henry Winterson stood just behind Joe and both their faces wreathed in smiles. Emma came, and the younger children ran with open arms toward this man who had been their playmate at Fort Laramie. Joe looked through the cabin's door to see Barbara and Ellis in a lovers' embrace. He grinned; they thought they could not be seen.

"Get down!" Joe sang out. "Get down and come on in! Where are your wagons?"

"Left 'em back along the Trail when the Sarge here smelled Indians," a lanky Kentuckian on a brown horse said. "Say, this looks like good land. Is it all taken?"

"Not near. There's room for all of you if you want to come and we have everything here. Everything but our wagon. That's lost, but we'll get another." He glanced again through the open door and shouted joyously,

"All of you just better stay right here, at least through tomorrow. There's going to be a wedding!"