"
Then the shining head sank into the mass and she heard no more.
She was conscious only of a giant form lurching, red-eyed and yelling,
out of the turmoil, of brown hands that clutched her arms, and of
another form which shot past her. For the second time in a few moments
one man had reached for her and another flung himself to her rescue.
She saw the Indian reel back with a red line spurting across his eyes,
felt herself lifted and flung across a shoulder, and knew that the gate
behind was swinging open. The next instant she slid down to her feet
with her face in the buckskin shirt of Marc Dupre, who leaned shaking
against the stockade wall and held her in a grip like steel, while
Henri Corlier shot the bolts into place.
Huddled in white groups were the women, some of them already raising
their voices in weeping, others silent with the training of the women
of the wilderness. The men faced each other with lips drawn tight and
breath that came swiftly. Prix Laroux, his dark eyes cool and sharp,
looked swiftly over the populace as they stood, for with that first
shot every man in Fort de Seviere had rushed to the gate, and in that
first moment of getting breath he calculated their strength and their
ability.
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