the door shut, grabbed my rifle, stuck the muzzle
through the port-hole, and pumped three shots out of it without once
trying to aim.

Then, without taking breath, I ran out the front by way of the tunnel
to the bank, and so up-stairs, where with another rifle I pumped out
two more shots, and then looked. The men had left the grade and were
coming full tilt out around the water-tank and graders' carts, their
horses rearing and floundering through the drifts. I fired twice,
aiming carefully each time, but I don't think I hit. I saw they would
soon be out of range. Again I dropped my gun, ran down-stairs and
through tunnel No. 1 to the hotel and up-stairs to a corner window,
double planked up, and giving me the range on the square and the foot
of the street. I was there first, with the hammer of my Winchester
back, and with Kaiser behind me wishing, I know, that dogs could
shoot.

The next second they came in sight and charged for the street. I aimed
and fired; I hit this time; one of the horses went down and the man
over his head. The other six came straight for the end of the street.
I fired again, but saw no results. I counted on the drift stopping
them. It did so less than I expected. Two went down in the snow; four
came on. I fired and one man dropped off his horse. The hard crust was
holding the other three. I fired again, but it did no good. Then the
head one, on a pinto pony, went down like a flash out of sight, horse
and man. He had gone into tunnel No. 3, leading to Townsend's store.

I fired three shots as fast as I could work the lever, without
stopping to aim. Then I looked out. The other two riders had turned
tail. The horse of one had gone down in the snow and he was running
away on foot; the other had got off the drifts without going down. I
thought it was Pike. It seemed a good time to shoot at him, and I did
so, but without so much as touching him, as I think. The man in the
tunnel got out and dodged around the corner of Townsend's store before
I could do my duty by him. They were all the next minute at the depot,
either in it or behind it.

This thing of their taking the depot was something which I had not
thought of. They were now as well covered and protected as I; and it
was still seven against one, because the man that I shot off of his
horse got over with the others by the help of one whose horse went
down in the drift. But their building was more exposed than mine, and
they could do nothing