For almost a minute there was silence. Nobody moved in the big room, where the shadows wavered as the faint flickering lamplight rose and fell, and there was no sound but the doleful wail of the night wind from the prairie. It was broken by a dull crash that was repeated a moment later, and the men looked at one another.
“They’ve brought their axes along,” said somebody. “If there’s any of the Michigan boys around they’ll drive that door in.”
“Watch it, two of you,” said Torrance. “Jake, can’t you get a shot at them?”
A man crouched by the open window, which was some little height from the ground, his arms upon the sill, and his head showing against the darkness just above them. He was, it seemed to Miss Schuyler, horribly deliberate, and she held her breath while she watched, as if fascinated, the long barrel move a little. Then its muzzle tilted suddenly, a train of red sparks blew out, and something that hummed through the smoke struck the wall. The man dropped below the sill, and called hoarsely through the crash of the falling axes.
“Got the pillar instead of him. There’s a streak of light behind me. Well, I’ll try for him again.”
Hetty emptied the box of cartridges, and, with hands that did not seem to tremble, stood it up before the lamp. Once more the man crouched by the window, a blurred, huddled object with head down on the rifle stock, and there was another streak of flame. Then, the thud of the axes suddenly ceased, and he laughed a little discordant laugh.
“Got him this time. The other one’s lit out,” he said.
Miss Schuyler shuddered, and clutched at the table, while, though Hetty was very still, she fancied she heard a stifled gasp. The silence was even more disconcerting than the pounding of the axes or the crash of the firing. Flora Schuyler could see the shadowy figures about the window, and just distinguish some of them. The one standing close in front of it, as though disdainful of the risk he ran, was Torrance; the other, who now and then moved lithely, and once rested a rifle on the sill, was Clavering; another, the man who had fired the last shot; but the rest were blurred, formless objects, a little darker than the cedar panelling. Now and then the streak of radiance widened behind the box, and the cold grew numbing as the icy wind flowed in.
Suddenly a voice rose up outside. “You can’t keep us out, Torrance. We’re bound to get in; but I’ll try to hold the boys now if you’ll let us have our wounded man, and light out quietly.”
Torrance laughed. “You are not making much of a show, and I’m quite ready to do the best I can,” he said. “If there’s any life in him we want your man for the Sheriff.”