I started to swim back, pushing my dishpan ahead of me. The sun began to warm things up and it was a lot more comfortable than it had been on my first trip across. I just poked along, enjoying myself and hoping breakfast would be kept warm for me. That was as near as I came to having breakfast for quite some time. When I got back to the citadel I had something to think about besides eating; in fact, I had before I got to the citadel.

I was about a hundred yards from the citadel and going easy when I heard a splashing off to one side. I raised up, and there, not two hundred feet away, was a raft with two Japanese on it. They hadn’t seen me, but were making for the citadel as fast as they could go. I got as low in the water as was possible to anything but a fish, and put on full steam. It was lucky they had such a clumsy raft and such rotten paddles or I couldn’t have made as good time as they did, but I managed to keep ahead and gain a little.

When I got close to shore I raised my head and let out a bellow:

“Mark Tidd! Hey! Look out!”

I hadn’t seen anybody around the citadel and thought maybe the Japanese were going to take them by surprise—and I was right, as I found out later. Plunk had been on watch, and because he was all tired out he had gone to sleep for a few minutes. My yell woke him up, and the rest of them, too. After that things moved fast.

I got to shore and made a dash for some clothes. I wanted more on than a towel if there was going to be a fight. Pants and a shirt aren’t exactly armor, but fighting with nothing on at all does make you feel sort of exposed. I ducked up the stairs, and as I went I happened to look across to the other side of the island. There came wallowing another raft with two Japanese on it. We were being attacked from two sides.

I gave another yell. Mark came rushing out and saw what was going on.

“G-g-git into your clothes quick,” says he; and I did.

When I came out both rafts were near the shore and Mark and Plunk and Binney were shooting at them with their slingshots, but their attention was divided. I joined in with Plunk, but in a jiffy we saw a third raft coming for the end of our island with The Man Who Will Come on it. Three sides to defend!

“Ho, Mark!” I yelled. “Here comes another detachment.”

He just took one look. “Make for the citadel,” says he. “Up-stairs, quick, and p-p-pull the stairs after you.”

My, but he was excited! and the way he stuttered sounded like hail falling on a tin roof.

We didn’t lose a minute, but made for the stairs and hauled them up. When we were safe on the second floor Plunk says:

“What’s this for? Now they can land all they want to.”

“Yes,” says Mark. “We’d ’a’ had a f-fine chance to keep them off. Three parties of ’em. We might have kept off one or two, but some of ’em would have been sure to l-land, and where’d we have been? It was good strategy. They forced us to retreat—but it would have been rotten strategy for us to have stood and fought. As it is we drew off our army without l-l-loss and occupied a strong defensive position. If we’d stayed we might have lost an army corps or so.”

“Wish we had one of them aeroplanes,” says Plunk.

“We hain’t,” says I. “Nor we hain’t got balloons nor submarines. We hain’t got anythin’—not even a chance.”

“We’ve got a chance,” says Mark, sharp-like, “till we’re driven off the roof. We’ll make the enemy take this floor, and then we’ll r-r-retreat to the next, and then, by Jimminy! we’ll take to the roof. I don’t want to hear any more talk about no chance. We’ve got all the chance we need.”

All this time we were keeping our eyes on the Japanese, who had landed and seemed sort of surprised they did it so easy. They came cautious-like, because I guess we’d made them think a bit in the last fight and they didn’t want to walk slam into a trap. They gathered off among the spruce-trees and had a council of war. Then they came toward the citadel in a body, with The Man walking ahead.

He was considerable improved, but it would be several days before he’d be fit to go to a party. His eye-glass was there, and his dude clothes, but we had his cane. Somehow he didn’t look natural without it. It seemed like that cane was a part of him, like it had grown on him.

They came up close, and then Mark gave the word to fire. We let them have several good licks with our slingshots, and they backed off for another talk. Next time they came on the run, and before we could pelt them enough to do any good they were under the gallery where we couldn’t hit them. But we could hear them moving around, and, by laying down on our stomachs, we could see them through cracks between the boards.

First they went inside, looking for a stairway, but of course they didn’t find any. We were just out of stairways and didn’t expect to get any more for quite a while.

We held a council of war ourselves.

“There’s just t-three ways they can get up,” says Mark. “One is to get the stairs lowered, one is to climb up over the front balcony with l-l-ladders, and the last is to get into a second-story window on the west side with a ladder. They can’t attack the back. The water keeps ’em off t-t-there.”

“If I was goin’ to attack,” says I, “I’d send three men and maybe four to come up ladders to the front balcony. While they were bangin’ around there, attractin’ attention, I’d have one man sneak up into one of those west windows, and come creeping across behind us to cut down the stairs.”

“G-good for you, Tallow,” says Mark. “How would you guard against it?”

“Why,” says I, after scratching my head a minute, “I guess I’d fasten the windows so nobody could get in.”

“F-f-first class,” says Mark. “Now if we could only think of some way to f-fasten ’em.”

“Why,” says I, “they’ve got fasteners!”

“Yes,” says he, “but how about the glass! They could b-burst it and reach in to unlock ’em.”

That was a fact. We couldn’t nail them, because we didn’t have any nails, and anyhow, it wouldn’t have done much good, for a man who had his mind set on it could have smashed through, anyhow.

“There ain’t but one way,” says Mark, “to keep the Japanese out of those windows, and that’s to w-w-watch ’em. All the time we’ve got to keep track of f-five Japanese. Somebody’s got to keep his eye on the windows, somebody’s got to watch the s-stairs, and the rest of us have got to be ready for an attack here in front.”

“Good!” says I. “Post your guards.”

“Ever read of cliff-dwellers?” says Mark.

“I’ve heard tell of ’em. But right now I’m more curious about Japanese.”

“Huh!” says he. “We m-m-might as well get as much pleasure out of this mix-up as possible. You can get p-pleasure out of sittin’ on a tack if you go at it right. We’ll pretend we’re cliff-dwellers in a stone castle up on a shelf on a m-mountain. The only way to attack us is to scale the cliff with ladders. A tribe of the enemy has come down on to us.”

“I’ve heard,” says Plunk, &ldq............