“Watch the gates closely. Kill the first man who attempts to open them.”
“All right, captain!” responded a voice from the darkness below, and the commandant was rising erect when Mark Harmon leaped upon him.
The young frontiersman was almost as strong as the captain, and he bore him to the puncheons before he could resist.
“I’m sorry it comes to this, captain,” he said, beckoning several men to his assistance. “We’re not going to let women die at our doors when we can save them. Now lie still until we release you, or by heavens we’ll turn you without the fort!”
Other hands than the young borderman’s now seized the captain, who soon relinquished his struggles, and Harmon sprung to his feet.
“Quick, Mark!” cried a man at a port-hole. “Quick! they’re thundering at the gates.”
The next instant the youth had disappeared, and six stalwart bordermen vanished with him like a flash.
“Helpless friends are at the gate!” he cried, as, pistol in hand, he sprung toward the sentries. “We command this fort now. Stand back!”
The sentries, instead of retreating, flew to the work of unbarring the clumsy gate, and in a moment the work was accomplished.
“Have you no mercy, Captain Strong?” cried Levi Armstrong’s voice, while the eight men worked at the fastenings.