"Come back here!" shouted Winchester, snatching Allifair as she fled; and, while he was dragging her back, Old Susie eluded him and ran screaming to bring in her husband. He had risen on his knees but as she stooped to lift him up a second bullet, aimed deadly straight, almost tore him from her arms. Old Henry was struck dead, but she would not believe it; she dragged him back anyway, crying out against his murderers, while the men on the hill-top laughed. "That's three of 'em!" they yelled, and Winchester barred the door again, for he feared that his mother would be next. The Scarboroughs had come to make good their boast and kill the last of the Bassetts; and the old Indian woman was no more to them than one of his barking dogs. They had come to kill them all, and even the gentle Allifair could not pass out that door and come back. They were killers, after all, these cowardly Scarboroughs, whom he had allowed to live too long; but killers in their own way, the sneaking, stealthy way of the Apaches, who hunted men down like game. Three men already had fallen before their guns; but he knew them, they would not fight in the open. They would not rush the house, and, while Bill kept a lookout, Winchester stood with his hand on the door. Outside, on the plain, Hall McIvor lay limp where he had dropped at the first fatal volley; but Sharps, groaning and grunting like a huge, wounded bear, was clawing the earth with his hands. He did not call out, but inched feebly towards the house, and Winchester turned away. The men on the hill were letting Sharps live in order to trap both him and Bill; for before they could reach Sharps the Scarboroughs would shoot them down, and then they would finish him. It was a part of their system, figured out to a nicety, but Winchester and Bill did not go out. They stayed by their loop-holes, searching the hill-top for some movement that would reveal the cunning ambush of the enemy. The sun came out hot and Sharps sank back exhausted; his black head heaved, and he was dead. Of all the Bassetts, the Scarboroughs had feared him most, and now that he was gone they hooted. Winchester and Bill, by their loop-holes inside the house, still watched the hillside, so ominously barren of life; but not a man moved and they did not fire a cartridge, for they would need them all, if they lived. They were outnumbered and surrounded, and when night fell their enemies would creep down close. They would slip up to the house, which two men could not guard, and fire it or break down the door; and then the Bassetts, if they lived that long, might hope to avenge their dead.