Thud! Thud!
It echoed hollowly within the stockade. Buck Bradley was quick to read its meaning.
"They've got a big log or suthin, and are busting in the gate!" he cried.
A shout of dismay went up from them all. As it so happened, there had been no time to bore any holes near the gate, and the only way to delay the work of battering it down would be to clamber to the fence top and fire down into the insurrectos handling the battering ram.
But it needed no second thought to show that this would be madness. At the first appearance of a head above the stockade, they knew that half a hundred rifles from without would pour a volley at it. It would not take more than ten minutes to wipe out the whole garrison in this way.
"Nope. We'll have to think of some other plan," decided Buck. It is worthy of remark here that not one of the defenders of the mine had ever even hinted at a surrender. This was not due so much to the fact, as they knew, that it would only mean exchanging one form of death for another, as it was to their grim determination to defend the mine at whatever cost to themselves. It was the dogged American spirit that prevailed at the Alamo.
"Aha! I haf idt!" burst out Geisler suddenly, after a few minutes of deep thought. "Dere is no hope uv safing dot gate?"
"Not the least," Buck assured him. "They'll have it through in a few minutes now."
He pointed to the timbers which were already showing jagged cracks up and down their entire length.
"Veil," said the German, "der office uv der mine is made strong—oh very strong, for behindt idt is der specie room. Ve can gedt by der inside in dere and fire through der vindows. And as a last resort vee can——"