Nurse as she was, she did not now stop to realize that a blow from a pistol butt is far more likely to stun than to kill.
The captain of Confederate cavalry swung off his horse and looked in at the doorway.
Emily Sessions, frantically kissing the forehead of Dad, didn’t hear, but within the cottage the erstwhile sedate Joseph Brinton staggered from his bed, dizzy with pain, and snarled out hysterically:
“You get the hell out of here!”
The huge, black-bearded captain merely smiled and, mounting, rode back along the lane toward the highroad.
He stopped so suddenly that the horse of the trooper behind almost piled up on the haunches of the captain’s horse.
Facing the Confederates in the lane, standing beside the body of her wounded, stood an old lady steadily and ferociously aiming a huge .44.
Beside her, bristling and fearless, was another adversary—Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte Dog, who was tearing his little heart out as he leaped up, trying to reach the boot of the trooper who firmly held the still struggling and kicking Jimmie.
“You stop!” demanded Emily Sessions.
Gone was the rosy and placid look of her. Very old and very terrible were her cold eyes. She seemed to glare into the eyes of death, but gallantly; and she had drawn a bead full on the captain’s heart.