But they plunged into the shore reeds; and John and Phil Helmer at their heels; and we fired our guns into the dark, but could not stop them or again even hope to glimpse them in their flight. But the Oneidas had now arrived between the tamaracks and the log house, and my Rangers were swiftly closing in on the west and south, when suddenly a couple of loud musket shots came from the crescents in the bolted shutters, hiding the west window in a double cloud of smoke. I called out, "Halt!" to my people, for it was death to cross that circle of light ahead while the marsh-hay burned. There were at least five men now barricaded in Howell's house. I called to Tahioni, the Wolf, and he came crouching and all trembling with excitement and impatience, like a fierce hound restrained. "Take your people," said I, "and follow those dirty cowards who are fleeing toward the tamaracks." Instantly his terrific panther-cry shattered the silence, and the Oneidas' wild answer to his slogan hung quavering over the Drowned Lands like the melancholy pulsations of a bell. The hay-rick burned less brightly now. I crept out to the dark edge of the wavering glare and called across to those in the log-house: "If you will surrender I promise to send you to Johnstown and let a court judge you! If you refuse, we shall take you by storm, try you on the spot, and execute sentence upon you in that house! I allow you five minutes!" At that, two of them fired in the direction from whence came my voice; and I heard their bullets passing, aimed too high. Then John Howell's voice bawls out, "I know you, Drogue; and so help me God, I shall cut your throat before this business ends!--you dirty renegade and traitor to your King!" Such a rage possessed me that I scarce knew what I was about, and I ran across the grass to the bolted door of the house, and fell to slashing at it with my hatchet like a madman. They were firing now so rapidly that the smoke of their guns made a choking fog about the house; but the log cabin had no overhang, not being built for defense, and so they over-shot me whilst my hatchet battered splinters from the door and shook it almost from its hinges. Some one was coughing in the thick, rifle-fog near me, and presently I heard Nick swearing and hammering at the door with his gun butt. The French trappers, not so rash as we, lay close in the darkness, shooting steadily into the shutters at short range. Shutters and door, though splintering, held; the defenders fired at my men's rifle-flashes, or strove to shoot at Nick and me, where we crouched low in the sheltered doorway; but they could not sufficiently depress the muzzles of their guns to hit us. Suddenly, from out of the night, came a fire-arrow, whistling, with dry moss all aflame, and lodged on the roof of Howell's house. Quoth Nick: "Your Tree-eater is in action, John. God send that the fire catch!"