are what we want the most.
Now--and it's your last chance--hand them out."

"No," said Grant.

The man made a little gesture of resignation. "Boys," he said, "you will
have to go in and take them."

Grant still stood motionless and unyielding on his threshold, but he had
only a moment's grace, for the men outside surged on again, and one swung
a rifle-butt over him. Breckenridge saw his comrade seize it, and had
sprung to his side when a rifle flashed on the stairway behind him and a
man cried out and fell. The next instant another rifle-butt whirled, and
Grant, reeling sideways, went down and was trampled on.

Breckenridge ran towards the rifle still lying in the hall, but before he
could reach it there was a roar of voices and a rush of feet, and the men
who poured in headlong were upon him. Something hard and heavy smote him
in the face, and as he reeled back gasping there was another flash on the
stairway. His head struck something, and he was never sure of what
happened during the next half-hour.

When, feeling very dizzy, Breckenridge raised himself in the corner where
he had been lying, the hall was empty save for two huddled figures in the
doorway, and while he blinked at them in a half-dazed fashion, it seemed
to him that a red glare, which rose and fell, shone in. He could also
smell burning wood, and saw dim wreaths of smoke drive by outside. His
hearing was not especially acute just then, but he fancied that men were
trampling, and apparently dragging furniture about, all over the building.
Then, as his scattered senses came back to him, he rose feebly to his
feet, and finding to his astonishment that he still possessed the power of
locomotion, walked unevenly towards the motionless objects in the doorway.
One of them, as he expected, was Grant, who was lying very white and
still, just as he had fallen.

"Larry," Breckenridge said, and shivered at the sound of his own voice.
"Larry!"

But there was no answer, and Breckenridge sat down by Grant's side with a
little groan, for his head swam once more and he felt a horrible coldness
creeping over him. How long he sat there, while the smoke that rolled in
from outside grew denser, he did not know; but by and by he was dimly
conscious that the men were coming down the stairway. They clustered about
him, and one of them, stooping over the injured homesteader, signed to his
comrades.

"Put him into the wagon, and start off at once," he said.

Three or fo