And then it was a woman’s voice, tremulous but clear.

“Ned, wasn’t it to save us that Major Plummer sent his men?  Wasn’t it for our sake he gave up all his escort?”

“It was, Fan, yes; at least he thought so.”

“And now you would desert him, would you?—­leave him to be murdered by these robbers, the worst gang we ever had or heard of.  I say you shall not.  I for one will not go into their hands.  Ruth cannot go without me.  Stay and fight it out, Ned, or you’re not your father’s son.”

“Fan!  Fan! you’re a trump!  God bless your brave heart!” cried Harvey.  “It seemed cowardly to go, yet the responsibility was more than I could bear.”

“May the saints in heaven smile on your purtty face for all eternity!” muttered Feeny, in a rapture of delight.  “The young leddy is right, Mr. Harvey; though it wasn’t for me to say it.  Shure you can’t trust those scoundrels; they’d stab ye in the back, sir, and rob you of your pretty sisters and drag them away before your dying eyes.  That man Pasqual is a devil, sir, nothing less.  Shure we’ll fight till rescue comes, for come it will.  I tell you the boys are spurring towards us, hell to split, from every side now, and we’ll whale these scoundrels yet.”

Then from without came the final hail,—­

“What answer, Harvey?  Now or never.”

“Go to hell, you son of an ape and worse than a Greaser!” yelled Feeny.  “If you had a dhrop of Irish blood in your veins ye’d never ask the question.  Now if you think you can take this money, here’s your chance.  No Harvey ever went back on his friends.”

Even brain-muddled Mullan felt a maudlin impulse to cheer at Feeny’s enthusiastic answer.  Even poor old Plummer gave a half-stifled cry.  Possibly he dreamed that rescue was at hand; but there was little time for rejoicing.  Springing back whence he came, the unseen emissary was heard shouting some order to his fellows.  The next instant the rifles began their cracking on both sides, and the bullets with furious spat drove deep into the adobe or whizzed through the gunny-sacks into the barley.  The unseen foe was once more investing them on every side and not a shot could be wasted in return.  Once more the furious crackle and roar of flames was heard close at hand, and then the smoke grew thicker, the heat increased, and poor Ned Harvey, his eyes smarting, knelt steadfast at his post and prayed, prayed for the coming of rescue, for the return of the loved father, all the gallant troop at his back, and then—­even as though in answer to his prayer—­there came a sudden lull in the fight.

“Something’s coming!” shouted Feeny, excitedly.  “They see or hear somebody, sure.  Look, Mr. Harvey, ain’t that two of their fellows scudding away westward out there?”

Surely enough.  In the glare of the burning sheds the besieged caught a glimpse of two of the gang bending low in their saddles a hundred yards away and scudding like hounds over towards the open plain.