I looked hurriedly around for shelter, but, before I could move, a hoarse cry rang out from the chimney, and down tumbled Scarface, the Apache, into the seething fire.
I dashed forward and dragged him out on the floor by one leg, before the flames could do him serious injury. He was stunned from the fall, though, and before he was able to offer any resistance, I had him securely bound, hand and foot, with a strong rope that I fortunately chanced to have in my pocket.
During this time Castro was probably on the roof, for no shots were fired through the logs; and, as the straw burned itself out, I felt that the siege had ended in my favor.
From Scarface I had nothing to fear, and I knew that the cowardly Mexican would not attempt to carry out a plan at which his comrade had failed so disastrously.
The Indian spent the remainder of the night in groaning, and when the welcome daylight shone through the logs my friend, Block, arrived on the scene with several of his ranchmen, and my siege was over.
The ranch turned out to be only two miles away. My friend had been expecting me on the previous day, and the sound of shooting during the night led him to make a search in this direction.
Castro had decamped, taking my horse with him, but he was captured at a neighboring settlement a week later.
Scarface recovered from his burns and was handed over to the sheriff, who put him where he was not likely to injure any person for some time to come.
My escape that night was truly a providential one. The crafty Apache had been stealing without a sound down the broad chimney, when the little spark that was smouldering for hours burst into a blaze at just the right moment, for if Scarface had gained the interior of the cabin this story would probably have never been written.
Brought up in the forests of northern Maine, and seeing few persons excepting her uncle and Angelique, the Indian housekeeper, Margot Romeyn knows little of life beyond the deep hemlocks. Naturally observant, she is encouraged in her out-of-door studies by her uncle, at one time a college professor. Through her woodland instincts, she and her uncle are enabled to save the life of Adrian Wadislaw, a youth who, lost and almost overcome with hunger, has been wandering in the neighboring forest. To Margot the new friend is a welcome addition to her small circle of acquaintances, and after his rapid recovery she takes great delight in showing him the many wonders of the forest about her home. Many weeks later, in one of their conversations, a remark from Adrian causes Margot to question her uncle as to her father’s whereabouts. It is just this knowledge that her guardian, knowing it to be best, has so carefully kept from her. Fearing that Adrian’s presence might, in some way, increase the girl’s interest in her father, he puts the matter before the young man. It is then decided that it were better for Adrian to take his departure.
