If there was anyone in the Millet house, it seemed impossible for them not to hear the uproar those pinschers were making. True, it was coming down in buckets, water spouting off the roof like hydrants. Also, it was dark as a cave; the lightning had pretty well quit; it settled down to rain in a serious way.
I know — every well-equipped Private I is able to whip out a flashlight at a moment like that. I regretted my lack of foresight. I had two packs of paper matches and my lighter.
I knocked on the doors opening off the porch. Not the slightest stir.
I tapped on the glass with my lighter. Still nothing. Those damned dogs were ripping the screen door with their claws.
I tried the French doors. Locked. One of the dogs got his head and forepaws through the wire, set up a demoniac racket at not being able to get at me. But it wouldn’t be long.
Those French doors have two latch handles. I remembered an old trick from my schooldays; sometimes if I pulled both handles together, the doors would give enough to open, even when locked. I gave a good healthy tug. Bingo!
Then I pulled the door wide, snapped on my lighter to get a glimpse of the room inside. What I got a glimpse of was the moving muzzle of a shotgun swiveling toward me about five feet away!
No champion base stealer ever did a fancier fadeaway dive. I hadn’t hit the floor when the room blew up with a blast that made thunder sound like a bowling alley a block away.
When I hit the floor I went over in a shoulder roll, sure I was hit. The side of my face felt as if somebody’d patted it with a red-hot waffle iron.
The muzzle flare blinded me, but I swung a leg to kick up at the shotgun. I had to gamble it wasn’t a pump gun with half a dozen more shells ready to blow me apart.