"What is that broom handle for?" questioned the red-haired girl, wondering if she would be expected to crack the desperado over the head with it.
"To lock the door with."
"Lock the door?" Could Tabitha have gone suddenly crazy?
"Yes. It's the only way we can fasten him in. The door has an iron handle on the outside, instead of a knob, you see."
"Oh!"
"Is that the man?" The door of the pesthouse had opened abruptly and a short, portly man roughly dressed, unshaved and florid of complexion, appeared on the threshold a moment, eyed the approaching girls indifferently, glanced searchingly toward town, and again vanished within, closing the door behind him. Gloriana's heart seemed to stop beating, then pounded so loudly that it sounded to her like the pulsing of the engines in the Silver Legion Mine. "Yes," she gasped.
"Then we've got him!" Scared but exultant, Tabitha leaped to the door, thrust her stick through the handle, and cocked her revolver, just as the man, hearing the noise outside, grasped the knob and tried to open the door.
"What the deuce!" they heard him exclaim, and then he wrenched again. "Who's out there, and what do you want?" he bellowed in rage, when the door refused to budge.
"You're our prisoner," Tabitha answered boldly, though trembling like a leaf with nervous dread; "and you might just as well keep quiet as to make a fuss. Glory, hurry for the sheriff, the assayer—anyone! He's desperate!"
And indeed he sounded desperate as he kicked and banged the door, shouted and swore, tearing about his small prison like a madman, and breathing threats of vengeance against his jailer, who stood pale but undaunted in front of the door, with a cocked revolver clinched tightly in both hands, waiting anxiously for the return of Gloriana with help from town, and thanking her lucky stars that neither of the small windows was on the door side of the house.