He raised the latch and six men crashed their way through the door. John Brown led the assault. He held a dim lantern in his hand which he lifted above his head, as he surveyed the room. He kept his own face in shadow.
With a smothered cry, the mother backed against the trundle bed instinctively covering the sleeping figures of the girls.
Brown pointed a cocked revolver at Doyle's breast and said in cold tones:
"Call those three boys down."
Doyle hesitated.
Brown's eye glanced down the barrel of his revolver:
"Quick!"
The man saw he had no chance.
He mounted the ladder, the revolver following him. The mother's terror-stricken eyes saw that each man was armed with two revolvers, a bowie knife and cutlass.
"Don't you scare 'em," Brown warned.