Ben surged up on a stiff arm, listening. The uproar had been in the shed, he thought. Maybe Ranger had broken his rope and run out. Now Ben could hear only the bumping sickly turbulence of his own heart. In a dream he had been flying; the dream had betrayed him into this agony of listening where no sound was, and fear grew over him like frost on a stone image. "_Arm!_" That noise was part of the dream. In the dream, faceless beings had been shouting, not willing that Ben should fly. Then he knew the cry was the summons of the watch in a world of no dreaming--a few rods away, near the north end of the palisade. It flared, a jet of terror in darkness, and died. The covers dropped. Cold slapped and squeezed Ben, but he could not move until some sound released him from this frozen waiting. It came, a yelling that soared upward like fire swallowing dry pine, throbbing yells made by only one kind of creature alive. A different voice pierced the clamor, snarling in search of authority: "_À droit, vous! Là-bas! Enfoncez les portes!_" And a wild drawled afterthought: "_Prisonniers!_" The voice was smothered by the yells and a whinnying of some other man's laughter. Footsteps pounded on snow. Steel assaulted wood. Then--Reuben still sleeping--the flintlocks began to talk, the near ones a dry thundering, the farther ones like slamming doors. Ben could move. He reeled up, shocked into panic, thrashing against sullen-clinging bedclothes. "Ru!" Ben punched and shook him. "God damn it, wake up!" Reuben made an empty noise. "Raid! It's the French!" Reuben leaped under his hand, comprehending. "Here!--your britches. Your shoes--no, bugger it, these're mine, where'd you put yours?" Ben slammed his forehead on the foot of the bed, searching; his nightshirt tripped him and he flung it off. A floor-splinter lanced fire into his knee. He heard two thuds, one below the window, the other in the same instant on the opposite wall. "_Ru!_" "Leave off shouting, Ben." "That bullet----" "What bullet?" "Never mind. _Will_ you tell me where your shoes are?" Reuben could not answer. Joseph Cory's voice fumed at the foot of the stairs: "Come down! Coats--don't forget your coats!" Ben shouted: "We're coming!" He pursued the shoes under the fallen bed-cover. He found his own breeches and shirt, then his hunting-knife where it always rested on the table by the bed. Orange glory beyond the window marvelously bloomed, flooding Reuben's angelic face and thin naked body moving toward the square of light. "Why," said Reuben--"why, the cods're burning us!" "God's mercy, get away from that window!" He had to pull Reuben from it; force the shoes on his feet and find armholes for him. Father was calling again. Ben hustled his brother to the head of the stairs. "Stay here. I'll get the coats."