He frowned and drew back, a stern refusal on his lips as he remembered the pitiless code of the feudist—but at the look in her eyes he bowed his head and gave her his hand in assent.
"It is the only way," she whispered, "if we are ever to end the feud before all our kinfolks are dead. Let these men fight it out—but if you join in with them now, I know you, you will never draw out. Let Winchester and Bill take their revenge on the Scarboroughs, and we will go back home. They cannot kill us then, because I shall be a McIvor and you will have married a Randolph."
"Yes, dear," he nodded, but he would not say more and she left him to watch over the dead.
The long day dragged on with men shouting from the hilltops, and then the smash and thud of the big, explosive bullets announced the beginning of a new attack. In some way the Scarboroughs had procured bullets which blew up the instant they struck against the house, and at each volley of shots the mortised logs crashed and jumped, while the chinks gave off a thin smoke. But after the first volleys the shooting died away and again a voice shouted from the hill. Hall muttered—it was the voice of Isham.
"Hey! Send out that woman!" he called down loudly. "Last chance—we're going to do a clean job!"
"Yes you are!" yelled back Bill, but Winchester was silent and it remained for Hall to speak.
"You'd better go, Allifair," he said. "I'll try to join you later." And then he whispered a few last words into her ear.
"Dare to trust 'em?" questioned Winchester as Hall opened the door, and when Hall nodded he assented. "Well, good-by, then," he said, giving his hand to Allifair, "I'll see that Mr. Hall gets away."
"Oh, will you?" she cried, and glanced guiltily at her lover; then gave the haggard Winchester both her hands. But there was something more behind, and as she gazed at him inquiringly he reached down and picked up a blanket. "For him," he said, and, glancing out at Sharps, he turned and strode abruptly away. Then she knew and the tears started suddenly to her eyes as she stepped bravely out into the open.
"Go back to the Rock House!" directed Isham from his hiding-place, but she went past the body of Sharps. Hall watched her as she bent down and covered it up without even a glance at the hill; and as she went across the plain he followed her through his glasses, though the bullets were smashing against the house. As each ball struck it seemed to rend the timbers, spitting lead viciously in through the chinks; and once more old Susie raised her voice in a wail, for she knew that the end was near. While the sun was in the sky Winchester could keep them at bay; but when the shadows fell and blurred his sights, then the Scarboroughs would come down from their hill. They would creep up to the house and throw fire on the roof and shoot them all down as they ran; and the body of her husband would be burned where it lay—the Scarboroughs would destroy them all. But Winchester had taken the shovel from the fireplace and started a hole under the wall, and as evening came on he buckled on his two six-shooters and stepped to the mouth of his tunnel.