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Captain Shirril stepped hurriedly to the spot, and found the door closed but unfastened. Even in his haste the youth did not forget to shut it behind him, leaving to his friends the duty of securing it in place. "He is gone; God be with him!" he whispered to his wife and servant, who with painfully throbbing hearts had stepped to his side.
Shirril now resumed her sitting in front of the fire, occasionally taking part in the words of her husband and guests. Dinah was heard muttering angrily to herself upstairs, as she investigated the damages done by the visitor in her apartment. Avon, on his return, told his uncle about his horse, explaining that he was fortunate enough to recover Thunderbolt.
Shirril was more disturbed than ever, for she knew as well as did her husband the risk he ran, but she knew, too, that, when he once decided to do a thing, it was idle to seek to restrain him. The burning wood threw an illumination through the room which rendered any other light unnecessary, and the captain could not have been in clearer view had the midday sun been shining.
To Shackaye's reply that the chief Wygwind meant to allow the friends of the prisoner to buy him back, Captain Shirril dwelt upon the impossibility of such a thing.
Shirril walked quietly through the larger apartment, without coming upon anything to attract notice, after which she went to her own room, Dinah accompanying her all the way. "I don't see that there is any need of our remaining here," said the mistress, "for there is no possible way of any of the Indians effecting an entrance." "'Ceptin' frough de trap-door," ventured the servant.
His rifle remained in place on the front of his saddle, so that it was beyond his reach, while, as I have stated elsewhere, he carried no pistol. He was, therefore, without firearms. Captain Shirril was fully two hundred yards away, but he saw the imminence of the danger, and, bringing his gun to a level, fired at the steer, calling at the same moment to his nephew to shoot it.
When the last desperate struggle took place he spurred forward and joined the assailants. The intention of the Comanches had been to shoot down Avon, but to spare his uncle, and it was curious that the very opposite result was effected. It was impossible that Captain Shirril should escape in the mêlée, though his foes meant only to shoot down the horses and slay his companion.
Had there been any doubt on this point, it would have been dissipated by a repetition of the signals that seemed almost continually passing between the besieging Comanches. Captain Shirril noticed that the sounds came from the direction of the mesquite bush, as though most of them had gathered there apparently for consultation, and were calling in the other members of their party.
He was a native of the Lone Star State, where, until he was thirteen years old, he attended the common school, held in a log cabin within three miles of his home, after which he went to live with his uncle, Captain Dohm Shirril, with whom the orphan son of his sister had been a favorite from infancy.
Standing thus, in the stillness and gloom of the upper room, the servant related in her characteristic way the extraordinary experience of herself and mistress with the dusky intruder. As she had said, the warning which the captain shouted from the roof was heard by them, but the words were not understood. Mrs. Shirril, however, was keen-witted enough to suspect the truth.
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