As sunset began to wane to twilight the attackers who lay circled about Spurrier’s cabin found themselves growing restive.
And inside John Spurrier was a man reanimated by the faint signs of life which he had discovered in Glory.
A pulse still fluttered in her heart, but it throbbed flickeringly and its life spark was pallid. Every moment this malevolent pack held its cordon close was as surely a moment of strangling her faint chance as if their fingers had been physically gripping her soft throat. And he could only kneel futilely beside her and wait!
From his loopholes upstairs he saw once more two hats and gave their wearers shot for shot, but when they kept their rifles popping he suspected their purpose and dashed across the floor in time to send three rapidly successive bullets into a little group that had detached itself from the timber on that side and was creeping toward the house. One crawling body collapsed and lay sprawling without motion. Two others ran back crouching low and were lost to sight.
So he swung pendulumlike from side to side, firing and changing base, and when his second turn brought him to the window through which he had shot his man, he saw that the body had already been removed from sight.
CHAPTER XIV
It was a hopeless game and a grim one. He could not cover all the defenses long in single-handed effort, and the best he could hope for was to die in ample companionship. Now, two men had reached broad-girthed oaks, halfway between thicket and house. There they were safe for the next rush.