“Good, my dear!” cried Williston, in low tones. Quick as a flash, the door was slammed shut and bolted just as a second shot fell foul of it.
“Oh, my father!” cried Mary, groping her way to his side.
“Hush, my dear! They missed me clean. Don’t lose your nerve, Mary. They won’t find it so easy after all.”
There had been no third shot. A profound silence followed the second report. There was no sound of horse or man. Whence, then, the shots? One man, maybe, creeping up like some foul beast of prey to strike in the dark. Was he still lurking near, abiding another opportunity?
It took but a moment for Williston to have the rifles cocked and ready. Mary took her own from him with a hand that trembled ever so slightly.
“What will you do, father?” she asked, holding her rifle lovingly and thanking God in a swift, unformed thought for every rattlesnake or other noxious creature whose life she had put out while doing her man’s work of riding the range,—work which had given her not only a man’s courage but a man’s skill as well.
“Take the back window, girl,” he answered, briefly. “I’ll take the front. Stand to the side. Get used to the starlight and shoot every shadow you see, especially if it moves. Keep track of your shots, don’t waste an effort and don’t let anything creep up on you. They mustn’t get near enough to fire the house.”
His voice was sharp and incisive. The drifting habit had fallen from him, and he was his own master again.
Several heavy minutes dragged away without movement, without sound from without. The ticking of the clock pressed on strained ears like ghastly bell-tolling. Their eyes became accustomed to the darkness and, by the dim starlight, they were able to distinguish the outlines of the cattle-sheds, still, empty, black. Nothing moved out there.
“I think they’re frightened off,” said Mary at last, breathing more freely. “They were probably just one, or they’d not have left. He knew he missed you, or he would not have fired again. Do you think it was Jesse?”