But though the attack was vigorous all along the line, it was especially so at the western corner of the fort, where the Indians had discovered that if they could gain possession of the exposed stables they could command and render untenable a considerable extent of the interior defences. Al was at the same barricade which he had occupied two days before, but it was being defended now chiefly by men of the Renville Rangers, who were fighting as courageously as the best of veterans. All at once Al saw Lieutenant Sheehan and Lieutenant Gorman, of the Rangers, run up to the field gun near them, and heard Sheehan cry to the gunners: "Fire shell into the left of those stables! Set them afire if you can. The Indians are trying to get in them." Then the officers ran on to their barricade. "Boys," shouted Lieutenant Gorman to the Rangers, "those stables on the right must be burned. Come on! Don't go near the ones on the left; the cannon is going to knock them to pieces. Hurry up!" He sprang across the barricade, and a number of the men without the least hesitation darted after him over the exposed ground in front, their guns trailing beside them and their heads bent low. Hardly thinking what he was doing but eager to be of service, Al followed them, and in the general uproar he did not hear Lieutenant Sheehan shouting to him to come back. The distance was not great, and though the bullets seemed to rain around them, almost before he knew it Al found himself with Lieutenant Gorman and his dusky companions inside the stable, and none of them hurt. Under Lieutenant Gorman's quick orders, the Rangers snatched up handfuls of hay, lighted them, and blew them into flames along the inner walls of the building. But Al, during the moment they were thus occupied, peered out through an opening in the western end of the stable. What he saw alarmed him. There were Indians everywhere, just below the edge of the hill out of the direct line of fire from the fort, and a number of them were actually along the outside wall of the stable itself. Al thrust his revolver through the opening and fired three times in rapid succession, with what effect he never knew, for he heard Lieutenant Gorman shout, "She'll burn now. Come on, get away! Get away!" The inner walls of the stable were a seething mass of flames as they fled through the doorway, hearing as they ran the crash and explosion of a shell in the stables beside the one which they had just left. As he sprang back behind the barricade again, Al felt a hand grasp him roughly by the arm, and heard Lieutenant Sheehan's voice saying in his ear: "You young rascal, what do you mean by running out like that and risking your life? You're not a soldier; I didn't order you out. What would your mother and sister do if you were killed?" This aspect of the matter had not occurred to Al before. He began to reply, in penitent confusion, "Why,--I don't know, sir. I--"