"Why can't we go with her and return their fire," exclaimed Rodney, as Mrs. Merrick left the room and moved along the wide hall toward the front door. "I'll not stay here like a bump on a log and let her be shot at, now I—"
"Come back here. Sit down and behave yourself or you'll play smash," said Tom, earnestly. "They'll not harm her. It's her husband they are after. Now listen."
Rodney sat down in the nearest chair, rested the hand that held his revolver on the table, and waited and listened with as much patience as he could command.
CHAPTER XI.
RODNEY MAKES A TRADE.
"You are a pretty partisan, you are," whispered Tom Percival, while they were waiting for Mrs. Merrick to open the front-door. "Those men outside are friends of yours, and yet you stand ready to fight them."
"I don't claim friendship with any cowardly bushwhacker," answered
Rodney hotly. "I don't collogue [associate] with any such."
"Then you'll have to do one of two things," said Tom. "Go home and stay there, or else join the Confederate army. Nearly every man in Missouri is a bushwhacker. Now listen."
Tom did not follow his own suggestion, for when he heard the front door creak on its hinges, he laid down his revolver and covered his ears with his hands. This made Rodney turn as white as a sheet and get upon his feet again, fully expecting to hear the roar of a shotgun, followed by the clatter of buckshot in the hall; but instead of that, there came the calm, even tones of Mrs. Merrick's voice inquiring:
"What is it?"