Kippis was already fulfilling his charge. Through a gap in the northward-sweeping prairie-fire--a gap fought out and kept open by a line of men--were coming the women of Clothes-Pin Row, each carrying a child and dragging a second by the hand. Behind them scuttled the papoose-cumbered squaws from the scouts' huts. At their rear trudged the sergeant, also weighted, and jaunty no longer, but leaving red stains where his naked feet touched the hot and smouldering ground. "To headquarters!" shouted the captain, at the foremost laundress in the rout. Then he turned to his trumpeter. A moment after, the fires and the perishing horses were deserted, and the troopers, weapons in hand, ran out upon the parade-ground, obeying a call to arms. Oliver led them. As he approached the flagstaff, the voice of a woman hailed him from the gallery of the nearest house. He sprang that way, and was up the steps at a bound. Mrs. Cummings, who had sought refuge in her own home, met him at the top. "The Colonel's library is stripped!" So it was. One hurried look by the light of a lamp showed that not a bow, not an arrow remained on the walls. But there was no time for exclaiming or conjecturing. Oliver rushed back to the gallery and bade all the women and children collect and keep within quarters. Around it, under Sergeant Kippis, he stationed a cordon. Next, and while the house was being thoroughly wet down, the ammunition stores were drawn upon, and extra guns and cartridges were carried into the long reception-room, where the women could assist in reloading. Barely three minutes had passed since Oliver sent his messengers. But headquarters was fixed to withstand an assault and to protect its inmates. And now, still ignorant of what had befallen, he ordered the remainder of his men into line. At this point, with the detachment about to move, a volley of rifle shots sounded from the stockade--another--and another. Then up went a great hubbub: "The Indians! The Indians!" Oliver started his troopers double-quick across the square. At the hospital one of the stockade guard stopped them. "The Indians?" croaked Oliver. "Gone!" The troopers took up the cry: "Gone! The Indians are gone!" Oliver turned them back. They met a second man, black-faced, staggering, frenzied with alarm. It was Fraser. He caught at the captain's ragged sleeve. "Shot--other side--they're over there--those girls!--those girls----" His breath failed him. Again mingled cries went up from the troopers: "The shack, boys!" "They'll kill them girls!" "God!" Oliver saw the need. "To the ferry," he commanded. Like one man, they bounded headlong across the parade, through the red smoke pouring from barracks and stables, and on--only to come short upon a boatless landing, where they crowded upon each other and cursed. Fraser was half-crazed. Oliver took him forcibly in hand. No man of them all, even if not burdened with a gun, could stem the river's current.