lowing spot. To
enter farther into the cabin the men must pass between it and her. She
raised one of her revolvers into a line with it. When that spot was
obliterated, she would know, however silently they moved, the enemy had
advanced, and in that second she meant to fire; the stove was high, and
a man passing in front of it would have that red spot in a line with his
heart.

With her heart beating fast with exultation, and not a tremor in her
steady fingers, she waited motionless as a statue against the wall. She
was not a girl of a cruel nature, but her husband lay behind that slim
partition on her right, and unarmed, for Stephen would never carry a
pistol, and she would have shot unhesitatingly each man in succession
that tried to pass her to him. There seemed to be some talking outside
and a trampling of feet on the broken wood of the door, and then
suddenly the soft red fire spot was eclipsed in the total darkness
around, and on the instant Katrine's finger had pulled the trigger.
There was no groan this time after the shot, only a heavy thud and a
crash as a falling body struck some fire-irons by the stove. The red
spot glowed out of the darkness again and stared Katrine cheerfully in
the eyes. There was a confusion of voices outside: Katrine could hear
the thick oaths and one man apparently enjoining another to come out of
there and have done with the business. Katrine smiled as she heard. She
guessed that the man addressed was the one that lay now between her and
the stove, and his ears were for ever closed. In the same moment she
heard the inner door open, and for an instant Stephen appeared, pale and
in his night clothes and with a flaring candle in his hand. With a
spring like a leopard Katrine had reached him and put her hand over the
flame of the candle, crushing it out beneath her palm. The darkness she
knew was their only shield. By their voices and their footsteps she
could tell the men without numbered not less than four or five. Once let
a light reveal to them that the house was held only by a single girl,
they could overpower her in a few seconds. It was only that horrible
pitchy darkness, out of which those deadly shots came ringing with such
precision and promptness, that filled them with the idea that the cabin
was protected by a body of desperate and straight-shooting miners. It
was the fears of the besiegers now simply that was protecting the
besieged.

"Go back," she said, with her lips on hi