Page:For the Liberty of Texas.djvu/75

Rh to batter down the door with the log, and likewise trying to pry open several of the shutters with their hatchets.

At such close quarters it was next to impossible to fire on them, although several gun and pistol shots were exchanged. Once an Indian fired through a port-hole into the bedchamber, and the burning gun-wad landed on one of the straw bedticks.

"Put it out!" roared Poke Stover, and while Dan trampled on the fire to extinguish it, the frontiersman let the Indian have a shot in return.

Crash! crash! The heavy bombardment on the door was beginning to tell, and already there was a long crack in the oaken slab, and the splinters were flying in all directions.

"We'll take our stand here!" cried Poke Stover, motioning to a spot facing the door. "Give it to 'em the minit daylight shines through!" And they did, with such serious results that the party with the ram dropped that instrument and ran to the opposite side of the house. But their places were quickly taken by others, and now it looked as if the door must give way at any instant.

Suddenly, just when it looked as if the next shock to the door must smash it into a hundred pieces, there came a scattering volley of rifle-shots from the timber near the river, answered almost instantly by a second volley from the forest