Suddenly a great shout reached him from without.
"Ho, Jeff! Ho, boy!"
It was a deep-throated roar which drowned the hiss and crackle of the blazing straw.
Jeff's answer rang through the burning structure with all the power of his lungs.
"The door! Bust it! Quick, Bud! Bust it, an' stand clear!"
For answer there was a crash on the woodwork outside. He waited for no more. With a wild rush through the blinding, choking fog of smoke he charged down the room. With all his might he flung the blazing palliasse from his scorched hands. He had no idea of the direction in which it went. His one desire now was to reach the door as it gave under the sledge-hammer attacks of the men outside.
He heard a crash and rending of woodwork. He could see nothing. He was incapable of further effort. The end had come all too soon. He staggered blindly, helplessly. His tottering limbs gave under him. Suffocation gripped him by the throat. He was conscious of the rush of a figure toward him. The sound of his name shrieked in a woman's voice. Then there were shots fired. He heard them. And it seemed there were many of them, and the sound was blurred, and vague, and distant from his ears. He fell. He knew he fell. For hours it seemed to him he continued to fall in an abyss of blackness that was wholly horrifying. It was a blackness peopled with hideous invisible shadows. So impenetrable was the inky void that even sound had no place in it.
CHAPTER XXVI
UNDER THE VEIL
There was no moon. Only a starry sheen lit the night. A wonderful peace had descended upon the hills. The quiet was the hush of the still prairie night. Teeming maybe with restless life; but it was a life invisible, and rarely audible. Nevertheless the hush was merely a veil. A veil which concealed, but had no power to sweep away the garnered harvest of violent human passions.