said, quite seriously.
"Anyway, she was asleep then, and didn't know what she was doing. It
was just the subconscious reaching up of a falling, or dreaming,
child."

She was not a little amused, in a quick turn from her serious bent of
jealousy, at his long and careful explanation of the incident. She
laughed, and the little green cloud that had troubled her blew away on
the gale of her mirth.

"Oh, well!" said she, from her deep corner across the bright oblong of
the door, tossing it all away from her. "Do you think they'll go away
and let us come out after a while?"

"I don't believe they've got any such intention. If it doesn't come to
a fight before then, I believe we'll have to drive the horses out
ahead of us after dark, and try to get away under the confusion. You
should have gone on, Frances, when I told you."

The horses were growing restive, moving, stamping, snorting, and
becoming quarrelsome together. Macdonald's little range animal had a
viciousness in it, and would not make friends with the chestnut
cavalry horse. It squealed and bit, and even tried to use its heels,
at every friendly approach.

Macdonald feared that so much commotion might bring the shaky, rotten
roof down on them. A hoof driven against one of the timbers which
supported it might do the trick, and bring them to a worse end than
would the waiting bullets of Dalton and his gang.

"I'll have to risk putting that horse of yours over on your side," he
told her. "Stand ready to catch him, but don't lean a hair past the
door."

He turned the horse and gave it a slap. As it crossed the bar of light
falling through the door, a shot cracked among the rocks. The bullet
knocked earth over him as it smacked in the facing of the door. The
man who had fired had shot obliquely, there being no shelter directly
in front, and that fact had saved the horse.

Macdonald peered through his loophole. He could not see the smoke, but
he let them know that he was primed by answering the shot at random.
The shot drew a volley, a bullet or two striking the rear wall of the
cave.

After that they waited for what might come between then and night.
They said little, for each was straining with unpleasant thoughts and
anxieties, and put to constant watchfulness to keep the horses from
slewing around into the line of fire. Every time a tail switched out
into the streak of light a bullet came nipping in. Sometimes Macdonald
let them go unanswered, and again he