To his quickened hearing came the sound of stealthy creeping. Something moved directly in front of him, but some distance away. “Shoot every shadow you see, especially if it moves,” were the fighting orders, and his was the third shot of that night.
“Hell! I’ve got it in the leg!” cried a rough voice full of intense anger and pain, and there were sounds of a precipitate retreat.
Out under protection of the long row of low-built sheds, other orders were being tersely given and silently received.
“Now, men, I’ll shoot the first man of you who blubbers when he’s hit. D’ye hear? There have been breaks enough in this affair already. I don’t intend for that petticoat man and his pulin’ petticoat kid in there to get any satisfaction out o’ this at all. Hear me?”
There was no response. None was needed.
Some shots found harmless lodgment in the outer walls of the shanty. They were the result of an unavailing attempt to pick the window whence Williston’s shot had come. Mary could not keep back a little womanish gasp of nervous dread.
“Grip your nerve, Mary,” said her father. “That’s nothing—shooting from down there. Just lie low and they can do nothing. Only watch, child, watch! They must not creep up on us. Oh, for a moon!”
She did grip her nerve, and her hand ceased its trembling. In the darkness, her eyes were big and solemn. Sometime, to-morrow, the reaction would come, but to-night—
“Yes, father, keep up your own nerve,” she said, in a brave little voice that made the man catch his breath in a sob.
Again the heavy minutes dragged away. At each of the two windows crouched a tense figure, brain alert, eyes in iron control. It was a frightful strain, this waiting game. Could one be sure nothing had escaped one’s vigilance? Starlight was deceptive, and one’s eyes must needs shift to keep the mastery over their little horizon. It might well be that some one of those ghostly and hidden sentinels patrolling the lonely homestead had wormed himself past staring eyeballs, crawling, crawling, crawling; it might well be that at any moment a sudden light flaring up from some corner would tell the tale of the end.