I felt the straining hemp contract within my grasp. Trampling feet clawed for a firmer hold on the frozen sod, and I could hear the men behind me panting heavily. The door remained fast, however, and again a breathless voice encouraged us: "This time does it! Out she comes!"
The rope creaked, the trampling increased, and a man behind kicked me cruelly on the ankle during his efforts; but instead of the jammed door, its handle came out, and the next moment we went down together in one struggling heap. "There was a good birch log by the granary. We'll use it for a ram," I gasped.
Two men brought the log, which was unusually long and heavy for that region, where the stoutest trees are small, and Boone and I staggered with the butt of it into the smoke. The rest grasped the thinner end, swung it back, and drove the other forward with all the impetus they could furnish. The door creaked, but the most manifest result was the fall of a further strip of burning thatch on us.
"We must manage this time," spluttered Boone. "If we once let go it will be too late before anyone else takes hold again."
Once more the door defied us. The heat was almost stifling, the smoke thicker than ever; but, choking, panting, and dripping with perspiration, we managed to swing and guide the end of the log until the battered frame went down with a crash, and we two reeled over it into the building. The fire which traveled along the roof had eaten a portion out, but though one strip of the interior was flooded with lurid light, the smoke of a burning hay pile rolled about the rest. A horse was squealing in agony; one stall partition had been wrenched away, and another kicked to pieces; while two panic-stricken brutes blundered about the building. The rest were plunging and straining at their tethers, and there was a curious look in Boone's face as he turned to me.
"Somebody will risk being kicked to death before we get them out. I wish we could give their owner the first chance," he said.
Several of the agonized beasts had been in times of loneliness almost as human friends to me. Others had, in their own dumb faithful way, helped me to realize my first ambitions, and the sight of their suffering turned me savage. "Do you know anything of this?" I asked.
Boone wheeled around on me with a menace in his eyes, but apparently mastering his temper with an effort, laughed unpleasantly. "No. Take care you are not asked the same question. Are you disposed to let the horses roast while we quarrel?"
The latter, at least, was out of the question, and I had only paused to gather breath and consider a plan of operations, for it is by no means easy to extricate frantic beasts from a burning building. The others in the meantime were gathering around, and we set about it as best we could. At times thick smoke wreaths blew into our eyes, the heat grew insupportable, and the first horse I freed would have seized me with its teeth but that I smote it hard upon the nostrils. Two men were knocked down and trampled on, another badly kicked, but amid an indescribable confusion the task was accomplished, until only one badly burned horse, and another with a broken leg, remained inside the building.
"We can't leave them to grill," I said. "Thorn used to keep an old shotgun inside the chop-chest lid."