But she placed her back against the door.
“Stop—men! Give me just one word!”
“Better stop this, boys!” gasped a man at the foot of the steps, struggling in half a dozen pairs of arms. “I warn you! It’s against the law!”
“Shut up, Jim Nichols; this is our business!” cried the leader to the helpless sheriff. “And now, you”—turning again to Katherine—“out of the way!”
The seething, torch-lit mob on the lawn below repeated his cry. The leader, his wrath increasing, seized Katherine roughly by the arm and jerked her aside:
“Now, all together, boys!” he shouted.
But at that instant upon the front of the mob there fell a tall, lean fury with a raging voice and a furiously swinging cane. It was Old Hosie. Before this fierce chastisement, falling so suddenly upon their heads, the battering-ram for a moment pressed backward.
“You fools! You idiots!” the old man cried, and his high, sharp voice cut through all the noises of the mob. “Is that the way you treat the woman that saved you!”
“Saved us?” some one shouted incredulously. “Her save us?”