No one made any reply, and it seemed to Ralph as if he could hear the pulsations of his own heart, so oppressive was the silence.
Again the summons was repeated, and a gruff voice cried:
"Open the door a moment. I wish to speak with Mr. Robert Hubbard."
Then there was a long silence, and, seeing the look of anxiety on Ralph's face, George said, in a low whisper:
"Don't look so distressed, my boy. Those men have got no more right to enter here than you have to go into another man's dwelling. If they should succeed in getting in, however, they would find sufficient to prove that Bob was about to infringe their patent; but, as it is, they have no authority to do anything, although Bob will hardly get a chance to shoot the Hoxie well to-night."
"That's just what I will do," whispered Bob, who had heard George's remark. "I will put in that charge if they camp where they are all night."
The men on the outside waited some moments in silence, and then the request was repeated, while at the same time footsteps could be heard as if some of them had gone toward the stable.
"They might easily batter in one of the windows," said Ralph, as the pounding at the door was continued.
"They would hardly try that plan," replied George, with a meaning smile. "There are a hundred or two quarts of nitro-glycerine stored here, needing only the necessary concussion to explode them. Those men know quite as well as we do how unpleasant such liquid may become, and I assure you that they will strike no very heavy blows on the building."
It was a singular position for any one to be in, and Ralph was far from being comfortable in his mind, as he awaited the result of this visit to the cabin of the moonlighters.
Ralph, simply a visitor to the cabin of the moonlighters, felt far more uncomfortable than did his hosts, to whom alone there was any danger.
As the party waited silently for any move by those outside, Ralph had plenty of time to review his own position, and this review was far from pleasant or reassuring.
In that section of the country the fact of being arrested as a moonlighter did not imply either disgrace or crime; but in Ralph's home, where nothing was known of such an industry, save when occasionally a newspaper item was read but not understood, the news of his arrest while trying illegally to "shoot" a well, would cause as much consternation and sorrow as if he had attempted to shoot a man. It was far from being a pleasant beginning to his vacation, and he would have been much better satisfied with himself if he had not made any attempt to penetrate the mysteries of the moonlighters' dangerous calling.