Carrie, springing forward from her posture of anxiety and terror, grasps a powder horn from over the mantel piece, jerks out the stopple with her teeth, and holding it over the fire, cries, with desperation:
"Do it, if you dare! This horn is full of powder, and if any man here dares to move that curtain, I'll blow you all into burning hell!" The man loosens his hold on the curtain, and totters back. He is sober enough to know how terrible is the situation, and he knows her well enough to believe she will do precisely what she says she will do. "Yes, I will! We will all go to the next world together; and now let us see who is best ready to die!"
"Bravo!" shouts Forty-nine.
The sheriff and his men have been moving back slowly from the inspired girl, standing there by the door of death.
Gar Dosson at last steals around by the sheriff. "But he is here, Mr. Sheriff," he says. "I tell you he is here in this house. There! For here is his cap. I found it. I found him, and I want him and I want that thousand dollars. Search!"
"And I tell you he is not here!" cries the girl, "and you shall not search, 'less—"
And the horn is lifted menacingly over the fire. "Won't you take my word?"
"You shall take my word!" shouts Dosson.
"I will take your single word, Miss, against a thousand such men."
And the sheriff puts on his cap, turns, and is about to go.