Jim McAllister was the first to speak.
“Where’s Flora?” he asked.
“Upstairs,” answered Noel. “Everyt’ing a’right an’ waitin’ for de doctor.”
He stood up, lowered the hammer of the gun and placed the weapon on the table.
“Now you take dis handcuffs off darn quick, Mel Lunt,” he said.
The constable scrambled heavily to his feet and obeyed.
Doctor Scott crossed the room and vanished up the narrow stairs. Sheriff Corker found his voice then and addressed Lunt and old Tim Hood at considerable length and with both force and eloquence. His words and gestures seemed to make a deep and painful impression on them, but the rest of the company paid no attention. Ben kissed the little girl, shook hands with Noel Sabattis, grabbed the leaping dogs in his arms, told fragments of his Quebec adventures to any one who chose to listen and asked question after question without waiting for the answers.
Uncle Jim seated himself beside the table and lit a cigar, cool as a cucumber, smiling around. Sheriff Corker marched Lunt and Hood out of the kitchen and out of the woodshed, still talking, still gesticulating violently with both hands. Those in the kitchen heard wheels start and recede a minute later. Marion went to Uncle Jim and asked him what he had done to his head. He told her of his difficulty with the young policeman which had caused all the delay, of the home-coming of the sheriff when Doctor Scott was bandaging his head, and of the arrival of Ben and Mr. Brown at the sheriff’s house a few minutes later.
“But what are you doing with those old pistols?” he asked.
“Those two men came to take the sick man away,” she said. “They tied Noel to the table and fought with Aunt Flora. I heard them; so I loaded the pistols—and then they were at our mercy.”