I had grown so excited and uneasy that I felt as if I could not rest unless I got up, found those pistols and loaded them, though nobody had ever heard of a burglary in Maysville, and half the time the doors were left unlocked at night.  Rather despising myself for my nervousness, but yielding to it nevertheless, I rose, put on my dressing-gown and slippers, lit my candle and went to find the two little pistols.  I stepped very softly, not to disturb Minny, for I should have been quite ashamed then to have her know my cowardice.  I looked in at the door as I passed.  She was sound asleep, with her baby on her arm.  The baby, however, was broad awake, but lying perfectly still, with her little finger in her mouth.  Her eyes shone in the lamplight as she turned them on me—­not startled like another child, but simply questioning.  The little creature looked so unnaturally wise and self-possessed that I was reminded perforce of a wild tale Wyanota had once told me about a remote ancestress of his who had married some sort of a wood-demon.  The legend ran that Wyanota’s family was descended from the offspring of this marriage, and I think Wyn more than half believed the story.

I passed on, and going into the next room found the pistols, carried them back to my own chamber, and loaded them carefully.  I was quite accustomed to the use of firearms.  There had been times in my life when I never sat down to my work or went to rest without having rifle or pistol within easy reach of my hand.  When I had loaded the weapons, I put them on the table by my bed and lay down again.  My excitement seemed to have subsided, and I was just falling asleep when I heard a door in the kitchen violently burst open.  I thought the wind had done it, and waited a moment to hear if the Panther would rise and shut it.

The next instant there was a shot, a wild cry as of mingled pain and fury, the sound of a heavy fall and a struggle.  Before I had well realized that the noise was in the house, I found myself at the kitchen door with my pistols in my hand.  I was greatly startled, but my one idea was to help my old friend.  The miserable door resisted me for a moment.  Seconds passed that seemed hours.  When at last I tore it open, I saw a man in his shirt sleeves lying dead on the floor, his head shattered apparently by a blow from the axe:  another, a large, powerful Irishman, was kneeling on the Panther’s breast, with his hands at the old man’s throat.

I sprang forward, but something swifter than I darted past me with a savage cry, and, tearing and biting with claws and teeth, flung itself full at the ruffian’s face and naked throat.  It was our big old brindle cat, Tom, roused from his place before the fire.  The unexpected fierceness of Tom’s assault took the man quite by surprise.  Before he could tear the creature away I had the pistol at his head.

“If you move,” I said, “I’ll kill you;” for, as I saw that my old friend was hurt, wrath took the place of fear.