caught one of them
fair between the shoulders, and down he went on top of the man who was
being carried away. The other three at once took to their heels and
ran, but did not finally get away scot free, for I snatched the now
reloaded musket from my assistant's hand and was lucky enough to bring
one of them down with a shot in the leg, though he was up and limping
away the next instant.

"There," I said to the negro who was supposed to be helping me; "you see
how it is done? Very well; see to it, my friend, that you make no more
misses." And he did not; or, at least, not very often. Meanwhile, the
firing from the other rooms had been proceeding pretty briskly, though
with what results, so far as the other three sides of the house were
concerned, I could not tell. But it had been fairly effective on my
side of the building; for, in addition to the three men for whom I had
accounted, there were five motionless figures lying on the grass within
view of my loophole, while I had seen others go staggering away palpably
hit. I imagined that the outlaws were somewhat disconcerted at finding
so many guns in the house, and had not very much stomach for a fight,
wherein it was possible that a good many of them might get very
seriously hurt. Hitherto, it appeared, the utmost resistance which they
had met with had amounted to nothing more formidable than a few hasty,
ill-aimed shots, followed by the immediate retreat of the defending
party. But this adventure upon which they were now engaged was quite a
different matter. Here was a good, solidly built house, constructed of
materials which it was scarcely possible to set fire to from the
outside, well barricaded, and evidently full of resolute men quite
determined to sell their lives dearly. Oh yes, this was quite
different, and it looked as though they did not half like it, for,
having failed in that first rush, they had now withdrawn out of range
and were apparently discussing some new scheme of operations. During
this pause I visited the other rooms in succession to see how the
occupants had been faring, and what measure of success they had met
with. The result of my inspection was the discovery that twenty-seven
of the attacking party had lost that number of their mess, while nearly
double as many had been more or less seriously hurt in that first rush;
which was quite as good as could reasonably have been expected; and it
seemed fully to account for the shyness whic