"Here they are!" he managed to say. "Keep 'em off, doc, if you can!"
"Go hide in the cellar, if you have one!" returned John, contemptuously, and walked to the iron-barred door set in a stone wall, which gave entrance to the main passage of the jail.
In front of this door was a small, elevated platform, not over six feet square. Above the door a lamp burned in an iron sconce set in the masonry. This was placed there for convenience in housing prisoners at all hours. John looked at the lamp a moment in doubt, then walked to it and turned the wick higher, so that the low flame sprang up and illuminated the platform upon which he stood, as well as the ground in front for several yards. As he faced about a reckless, devil-may-care smile was on his lips. At one side lay a goods-box, some three feet tall. John stooped and dragged it to the platform, and stood it on end in front of him. His purpose was not to form a shield, for the frail pine of which it was made could not have withstood a bullet, and it came scarcely to his waist, leaving exposed all vital parts. Glenning quietly dropped the keys in the long grass at the edge of the platform, took off his hat and placed it to one side, then lay his two revolvers upon the top of the box, gently rested his hand upon the butt of each, and waited. The revolvers were of forty-eight calibre, and brightly nickeled. They caught the gleam from the lamp, and shone suggestively. The jailer had disappeared. John had heard him locking and barricading his door. In all probability he had deserted the place by some rear exit.
The faint sound of many moving feet which had been audible a few minutes before had grown into a pronounced tread. As John stood and listened to this portentous advance, his heart did not quicken a beat. Indeed, he had grown calmer. The fever of unrest which had been tearing at him was departed now. Here was that danger for which he had vaguely hoped—here, before his face. Something like a hundred men came to a halt before the jail door, and at a respectful distance from the platform where a tall, bareheaded man stood, almost in a careless attitude. The mob was masked; there was not a face visible.
"Out with the keys, Bill!" jeered a man in the rear; "we mean business!"
The speaker had mistaken John for the jailer.
"Bill—hell!" growled another, nearer the front. "That's the new doc, but whut the damn fool's doin' here I don't know!"
Glenning had not said a word, nor had he shifted his position. But his most searching scrutiny had failed to reveal the presence of a single weapon among the besiegers.
"On! On!" cried some one in the rear. "Ain't there enough of us to 'tend to that feller?"
They began pushing, and the mob surged closer. Those nearest the platform were within a dozen feet of the solitary watcher now, but there was no menace in their attitude. Glenning had been sharply viewing the personnel of this mass of men, and from apparel, bearing, and general appearance he judged most of them to be of the rougher element. The three or four in front, who were evidently the leaders, may have been gentlemen. It was to these Glenning now spoke.