CHAPTER XIV
DAD THE PALADIN
THE ground-shell of the driveway below resounded thickly to the thudding of hard-ridden horses. Then, with a multifold shuffle, the hoofs came to a standstill.
There were heavy steps on the porch. A hammering broke out, as of gunbutt or sword hilt against the front door panels. And a voice shouted “Let us in!”
“Sakes!” whispered Mrs. Sessions. “I’d clean forgot! There must be a hundred of ’em from the sound.”
“No,” corrected Dad, his practiced ear having enumerated the hoof-beats. “Not more than four or five, I should say. Probably the men who chased me this morning. They’ve come back, as you said, and—”
She was gone, slipping down the stairs in swift noiselessness, closing the attic stairway door behind her.
Pausing only long enough to light a sconce of candles on the table in the wide hallway, Mrs. Sessions sped to the front door, whence the clamor had risen to a deafening pitch.
Unbarring the door, she flung it open, and stood on the threshold, a tiny spirit of wrath.
“What do you folks mean?” she demanded hotly. “What do you folks mean by banging all the varnish off my door panels like that? Couldn’t you use the brass knocker? What do you want, anyway; disturbing an old woman, like this?”
Four guerrillas gave back for an instant—if only for a bare instant—before her indignant outburst. Then one of them laughed.