With loud shouts they galloped up, and hearing them, he stepped to the door, sprang on his horse, and dashed off over the hill, with them after him.

But when they reached the top of the hill they found that he was standing on the ground behind his horse, with his pistol levelled at them across his saddle.

They were glad to make themselves known, and own up to the joke.
Father slipped home a few minutes almost every day, to let us know that he was yet alive, and to see if we were safe.

Every night we fastened up the house, expecting that before morning the Ruffians would try to burst in to search for father.

Those were days of terrible anxiety for mother, for she thought every time father rode away that it was probably their last parting.