"They're coming faster this time," remarked Stoddard.
"Certainly. Their general has been cursing them
right heartily for retreating without the loot. He wants
his three-hundred-thousand-dollar autograph collection,"
observed Larry.
"Why doesn't he come for it himself, like a man?" I
demanded.
"Like a man, do you say!" ejaculated Larry. "Faith
and you flatter that fat-head!"
It was nearly eleven o'clock when the attacking party
returned after a parley on the ice beyond the boat-house.
The four of us were on the terrace ready for them.
They came smartly through the wood, the sheriff and
Morgan slightly in advance of the others. I expected
them to slacken their pace when they came to the open
meadow, but they broke into a quick trot at the water-tower
and came toward the house as steady as veteran
campaigners.
"Shall we try gunpowder?" asked Larry.
"We'll let them fire the first volley," I said.
"They've already tried to murder you and Stoddard,
-I'm in for letting loose with the elephant guns," protested
the Irishman.
"Stand to your clubs," admonished Stoddard, whose
own weapon was comparable to the Scriptural weaver's
beam. "Possession is nine points of the fight, and we've
got the house."
"Also a prisoner of war," said Larry, grinning.
The English detective had smashed the glass in the
barred window of the potato cellar and we could hear
him howling and cursing below.
"Looks like business this time!" exclaimed Larry.
"Spread out now and the first head that sticks over the
balustrade gets a dose of hickory."
When twenty-five yards from the terrace the advancing
party divided, half halting between us and the
water-tower and the remainder swinging around the
house toward the front entrance.
"Ah, look at that!" yelled Larry. "It's a battering-ram
they have. O man of peace! have I your Majesty's
consent to try the elephant guns now?"
Morgan and the sheriff carried between them a stick
of timber from which the branches had been cut, and,
with a third man to help, they ran it up the steps and
against the door with a crash that came booming back
through the house.
Bates was already bounding up the front stairway, a
revolver in his hand and a look of supreme rage on his
face. Leaving Stoddard and Larry to watch the library
windows, I was after him, and we clattered over the loose
boards in the upper hall and into a great unfinished
chamber immediately over the entrance. Bates had the
window up when I reached him and was well out upon
the coping, yelling a warning to the men below.
He had his revolver up to shoot, and when I caught
his arm he turned to me with a look of anger and indignation
I had never expected to see on his colorless, mask-like
face.
"My God, sir! That door was his pride, sir,-it came
from a famous house in England, and they're wrecking
it, sir, as though it were common pine."