"I do hope none of you will get hurt!" cried the girl in deep concern. "It seems dreadful to think that perhaps before morning a very battle may be fought right around this quiet spot."
"Don't be alarmed," the sheriff insisted. "I look for little trouble or bloodshed either."
"No more do I," thought the pretty toll-taker, with a secret satisfaction she admirably concealed.
"I expect to take the rascals so completely by surprise they will have a chance to make but little resistance," the officer continued reassuringly, for the girl's apparent fear appealed to him. "Perhaps we may be able to capture the whole band without loss of a single man."
A feeling almost bordering on resignation had gradually supplanted the disturbed condition of Mrs. Brown's mind since her daughter's reassuring confession that the Squire had placed a shelter at their disposal, in case the raiders deprived them of the one they now had. She began to feel that the threatened calamity might, after all, take on the characteristics of a disguised blessing, since it would help to bring to a climax a state of affairs she had long striven, though unsuccessfully, to mold to her purpose, and that through the raiders the Squire might also manage to get him a wife, which, up to the present moment at least had proven a most elusive quantity.
With the coming of the posse to guard the gate, Mrs. Brown's spirits took on almost a jubilant turn, for though the raiders might fail in their present venture, they would ultimately succeed in the destruction of the New Pike gate, and its doom would probably not be far distant, in spite of officers or guard, while the price of its downfall would be the speedy realization of the mother's fondest dreams concerning her daughter's future.
"We might just as well lay down on the outside of the bed, dressed as we are," said Mrs. Brown, as she led the way into the house, after the men had been placed on guard. "It's no use stayin' up, though, of course, I don't expect to close my eyes the entire night, for nobody can tell what may take place before mornin'."
"The raiders may not come, after all," ventured Sally, hoping to allay her mother's evident fears, "though, as you say, it's just as well to look presentable, in case we should be turned out of the house and home in the middle of the night." She gave a covert glance in the small looking glass on the tall dresser as she spoke.
"There's at least one that will not be captured tonight, whether he is a raider, or whether he isn't, and the Squire may find that his traps are not as carefully set as he thinks," said the girl to herself as she blew out the light, and lay down.
The incidents of the past few days came crowding confusedly through her brain as she lay thinking over the many entanglements that seemed tightening their meshes closer and closer about her.