“Come on, boys!” urged Ballard, his voice filled with reckless determination. “Let’s run him.”
As they passed, the girl sprang up and went to her mother’s room to warn her of the threatened attack.
Lize was already awake and calmly loading a second revolver by the light of the electric bulb.
“What are you doing?” the girl asked, her blood chilling at sight of the weapon.
“Hell’s to pay out there, and I’m going to help pay it.” A jarring blow was heard. “Hear that! They’re breaking in—” She started to leave the room.
Lee stopped her. “Where are you going?”
“To help Ross. Here!” She thrust the handle of a smaller weapon into Lee’s hand. “Ed Wetherford’s girl ought to be able to take care of herself. Come on!”
With a most unheroic horror benumbing her limbs, Lee followed her mother through the hall. The sound of shouts and the trampling of feet could be heard, and she came out into the restaurant just in time to photograph upon her brain a scene whose significance was at once apparent. On a chair between his two prisoners, and confronting Ballard at the head of a crowd of frenzied villains, stood the ranger, a gleaming weapon in his hand, a look of resolution on his face.
What he had said, or what he intended to do, she did not learn, for her mother rushed at the invaders with the mad bravery of a she-bear. “Get out of here!” she snarled, thrusting her revolver into the very mouth of the leader.
They all fell back in astonishment and fear.