He tried to drown her voice by
a sudden movement toward the door. "Come!" he called. "Do you hear
me?"
But his daughter in her sympathy continued. "He was holding it so,"
she said, "and it went off, and the bullet passed through here." She
laid the tip of a slim white finger on the palm of her right hand.
"The bullet!" cried Ranson. He repeated, dully, "The bullet!"
There was a sudden, tense silence. Outside they could hear the crunch
of the sentry's heel in the gravel, and from the baseball field back
of the barracks the soft spring air was rent with the jubilant crack
of the bat as it drove the ball. Afterward Ranson remembered that
while one half of his brain was terribly acute to the moment, the
other was wondering whether the runner had made his base. It seemed
an interminable time before Ranson raised his eyes from Miss Cahill's
palm to her father's face. What he read in them caused Cahill to drop
his hand swiftly to his hip.
Ranson saw the gesture and threw out both his hands. He gave a
hysterical laugh, strangely boyish and immature, and ran to place
himself between Cahill and the door. "Drop it!" he whispered.
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