The shiftless
one swung his rifle butt, and the dog fell unconscious.
"I hated to do it, but I had to," he murmured. The next moment
Henry was knocking at the door.
"Up! Up!" he cried, "the Indians are at hand, and you must run
for your lives!"
How many a time has that terrible cry been heard on the American
border!
The sound of a man's voice, startled and angry, came to their
ears, and then they heard him at the door.
"Who are you?" he cried. "Why are you beating on my door at such
a time?"
"We are friends, Mr. Standish," cried Henry, "and if you would
save your wife and children you must go at once! Open the door!
Open, I say!"
The man inside was in a terrible quandary. It was thus that
renegades or Indians, speaking the white man's tongue, sometimes
bade a door to be opened, in order that they might find an easy
path to slaughter. But the voice outside was powerfully
insistent, it had the note of truth; his wife and children,
roused, too, were crying out, in alarm. Henry knocked again on
the door and shouted to him in a voice, always increasing in
earnestness, to open and flee. Standish could resist no longer.
He took down the bar and flung open the door, springing back,
startled at the five figures that stood before him.
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