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Updated: May 12, 2025
The signs of their old enemies, the Comanches, to which Captain Shirril referred, had been noticed by his men, including young Avon Burnet. They had seen the smoke of camp-fires in the distance, had observed parties of horsemen galloping to and fro, and, in fact, had exchanged shots with the dusky marauders when they ventured too near in the darkness.
Captain Shirril felt that it would have been better had he stayed where he was; for, with his head just above the level of the scuttle, he could have picked off the wretch the very moment he became aware of his presence. But now, while creeping so guardedly along the roof, he had held his rifle by the barrel, with most of the weapon behind him.
In fact, so far as Avon was concerned, he had crossed the Rubicon; for, if seen, it was impossible to re-enter the cabin, the door of which had been shut and barred. The warriors who had paused in front of Captain Shirril kept their places but a brief while, when they moved off so silently that he could not tell the direction they took.
A slight fire would speedily fan itself into a flame that would reduce the building to ashes. "And it only needs to be started," thought Captain Shirril, when he found himself alone below stairs, "and it will do the work; it was very thoughtful in Edna to dash that pailful of water on the smouldering blanket, and it quenched the embers, but, all the same, it required the last drop in the house."
It looked as if the assailants were in doubt on this point, for after the two shots they ceased firing, and everything remained silent for several minutes. Captain Shirril, even in his anxiety for himself, could not forget the inmates of his home. Two women and a fierce warrior were inside, and matters were sure to become lively there before long.
But the first dart of his serpent-like eyes showed the white woman, as immovable as a statue, with her rifle levelled at his chest and her delicate forefinger on the trigger. Mrs. Shirril had the drop on him! "If you move, I will shoot you dead!" she said in a low voice, in which there was not the first tremor.
Shirril dashed into the room, in consternation. "What in Heaven's name is the matter, Dinah?" "Nuffin's de matter wid me, but I guess it am all day wid dat cheer, howsumeber." The captain hurried up the ladder, flung back the covering, and leaped into the apartment. "Who's killed? What's the trouble?" he gasped.
The rider rose to view for a moment, like a leaper going over a fence sideways. Then as he descended on the other side of the steed, he continued descending until he struck the ground, where he rolled over a single time and never stirred again. At the critical instant, Captain Shirril had fired.
We must not forget our young friend, Avon Burnet, who volunteered so willingly to run every risk for the sake of helping his relatives out of the most imminent peril of their lives. At the moment he saw Captain Shirril start forward to smother the fire, by throwing one of his heavy blankets over it, he lifted the heavy bolt from its place, and leaned it against the wall at the side of the door.
The remaining member of Captain Shirril's party was Shackaye, a Comanche Indian, about a year older than Avon Burnet, concerning whom we shall soon have something to say further. Captain Shirril was right when he expressed his belief that the arrival of his friends would be in the nature of one of those wild western cyclones, which have grown quite familiar of late in the West and Southwest.
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