"Hubert, do you and Terence get all the arms loaded at once. Lopez,
tell the peons to hurry up the plow oxen, shut them in the
enclosure, and padlock all the gates. I will warn you if there's
any danger. Then bring all the men and women up here. I am going to
run up the danger flag. Papa is out somewhere on the plains." So
saying, and taking his Colt's carbine, he ran up the stairs.
In a moment afterward his voice was heard again. "Hubert, Terence,
bring all the guns that are loaded up here at once--quick, quick!"
and then he shouted loudly in Spanish, "Come in all; come in for
your lives!" In another minute they joined him on the tower with
Mr. Hardy's long rifle, Hubert's carbine, and their double-barreled
shotguns, into each of which Terence dropped a bullet upon the top
of the shot. Hubert could scarcely help giving a cry. At a distance
of a quarter of a mile Mr. Hardy and Fitzgerald were coming along,
pursued by at least a dozen Indians, who were thirty or forty yards
in their rear. They were approaching from behind the house, and
would have to make a sweep to get round to the entrance, which was
on the right, on the side facing the dam. This would evidently give
their pursuers a slight advantage.
"They hold their own," Charley said after a minute's silence;
"there is no fear.
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