aid us!" he cried,
running up and down in front of the loop-holes. "Come on, Nolan and all
of you," he added, for Graham had gone bounding half-way back again,
and, like so many goats, the threatened party came scrambling out of
their shelter and up the steep incline, while afar down the hill-side
rose a yell of baffled rage and vengeance.

"Hold the rest of them whatever you do!" shouted Geordie, again racing
back. "Don't let that gang over the edge or you're gone!" And again the
brown barrels of the rifles thrust forth from the wooden walls and were
turned on the bend of the road. Almost breathless, Long Nolan, and with
him the little squad of adherents, came running up to the door.
"Inside, quick as you can!" shouted Cawker. "We've got to give those
blood-hounds a lesson."

Even as he spoke a shot struck the thick, iron hinge of the heavy door,
the lead spattering viciously. Another ripped through the casement of
the nearest window, and a shiver of glass was heard within, as the
bullet spun through the shade of a lamp swinging from the beam above.
Cawker ducked, unaccustomed to such sounds, and dove to the interior.
Old Nolan, soldier of the Civil War and veteran of many an Indian
skirmish, disdained to notice it. Geordie, bemoaning the luck that had
left his pet rifle in Denver, busied himself with Nolan in "herding"
the party within before himself following. Then Shiner was found
missing.

"He started with us," cried Nolan. "He wanted to go back to be with his
boy, but we showed him he'd never get through. Those brutes would head
him off and kick his life out. He must have--Good God, Mr. Geordie!
Look where he lies!"

And then they saw that the old plainsman, in his eagerness to make a
way back to his possibly dying son, had quit the rush when half-way up,
had turned eastward and sought a foot-path down the mountain-side, had
found it guarded, like the rest, by a gang that yelled savage welcome
at sight of him. Then, too late, he had turned again, had managed to
run some fifty yards along the jagged slope, when a shot from a
well-aimed rifle laid him low. With a leg broken just above the knee,
poor Shiner went down, and without so much as a word, with only one
glance into each other's eyes, Long Nolan and Geordie swooped down to
the rescue.

Breasting the hill fifty yards below him came the heaving throng of
rioters, few of them, luckily, with fire-arms, but all bent on
vengeance. Darting downhill to Shiner