Then Franklin and Ronald passed her. "I won't give an order," the Captain was saying; "it's a job for volunteers." "May I have them?" asked the Ensign. "Yes--six. We can spare no more." A moment later a clear voice sounded above the clamour, "Attention!" There was the rush of hurrying feet, an instant's wondering silence, then Ronald spoke. "Boys," he said, "Mrs. Burns has a baby a day old, and there is no one with her but her husband. I'm going after them--who's going with me?" The soldiers, to a man, rallied around him. "I!" came from every throat. "I'm going!" "Six only," he said. He quickly selected his men, they snatched up their guns, and, with a warning "hush!" from him, they went to the bateau in which the Mackenzies had crossed. "Steady!" came Ronald's low voice, then the oars murmured in the water and the heavy gate rumbled into place once more. Forsyth, stunned by the whirl of events, was leaning on his musket, staring vacantly into space. Across the parade-ground his face appeared to Beatrice in the last flicker of a burnt-out knot. All her pent-up anger returned to her, and, still smarting under the memory of his affront, she left her horse and went over to him. "Why didn't you go with him?" she demanded. "Who--where?" "Ensign Ronald!" "I--I don't know," he stammered. He had told the unvarnished truth, but she interpreted it in her own way. "I'll tell you why you didn't go," she said, with measured distinctness. Then her eyes flashed and her breast heaved. "Coward!" she blazed. Robert started as if he had been struck, but before he could speak, she had left him and gone back to Queen. Her lip curled as she saw him standing there, leaning on his musket, with his head bowed. His habit of self-analysis asserted itself, and he began to wonder whether she had been right. The blood that had left his heart came back in tides of pain, and the word burned itself upon his consciousness. "Coward," he said to himself, "coward! She called me a coward!" Yet he knew that what she had said did not matter so much as the possibility that she had spoken truly--that his self-respect meant more than any woman's praise or blame. His reason told him that; but her scornful, accusing face flitted before him and he had an impulse to get away--it did not matter where. Still dazed, he went to the blockhouse at the north-west corner of the stockade and joined the men there. On the parade-ground Doctor Norton was making grewsome preparations. A stretcher was placed near each blockhouse, and others at regular intervals. Bottles were ranged in rows upon the ground, and piles of bandages showed whitely under the flare of the torches. He looked up, to find Katherine at his side. "Let me help you," she said. "No; there's nothing you can do just now, but I'm afraid we'll have our hands full later if--Go and scrape some lint," he broke off abruptly, "and make some coffee. Get the other women to help you."