This Mistress Pemberton did, and when the younger members of the company were in comparative safety, Mark looked anxiously around at his army of two. Luke was crouching behind the palisade, where a wide crevice between two of the posts afforded him a view of the outside without his being obliged to expose himself, and Susan was leaning against the timbers, only partially sheltered, as she appeared to be tying something around her arm. "What are you doing, Sue?" Mark cried, in alarm. "Standing guard here; but just now I can't see anything that looks like an Indian." "What is the matter with your arm?" "It's only a scratch," the girl replied, in a matter-of-fact tone. "It bleeds a little, and I've wrapped a piece of my gown around it." "You're wounded!" Mark cried, and he made as if to jump down from the platform, when Susan said, sharply: "Stay where you are! Even though I was hurt badly, which I'm not, you have no right to leave the fence unguarded." Mark stepped back with a certain sense of shame that it had been necessary for Susan to remind him of his duty, and then Mistress Harding went to her daughter's side. "It is a slight wound on the left arm," the good woman said, after insisting on an examination of the injury. "I will take her to the house while I tie it up properly, and Ellen may stand here in her place." "But Ellen can't use a musket as well as I, and we're needed here," Susan cried, more concerned lest she be forced to leave her station at the palisade than on account of the wound. Mistress Harding might have insisted on her daughter's going into the building if at that moment the assault had not been renewed, and during the next ten minutes the defenders were actively employed. The Indians, profiting by the teachings and example of the Frenchmen, whose allies they were, had divided the force, a portion remaining hidden in the thicket to fire at the children, while the remainder made a rush for the gate, as if believing it might be forced open. Now it was that the defenders were obliged to move quickly, and it was impossible for them to remain under cover all the while. "Pour all the fire into those fellows who are coming up with the log!" Mark cried, as half a dozen Abenakis, carrying a heavy tree-trunk, to be used as a battering-ram, made ready to advance at full speed. This command was obeyed with such good effect that three of the savages fell, and their fellows, dropping the timber, ran to cover with the greatest possible haste. At the same moment the children fired, the Indians in hiding discharged their weapons, detonations being echoed and reëchoed from mountain to mountain, until it sounded as if a severe engagement was in progress. "Any one hurt?" Mark cried, and Susan and Luke replied cheerily in the negative. One of the three Indians wounded while advancing with the tree-trunk succeeded in crawling off to the shelter of the underbrush; but the other two remained where they had fallen.