Doubtless they believed that the defenders had fled within the house at the first volley.
He heard suddenly the clicking of gun locks, and the rifles crashed together again, but now the fire was given at much closer range.
Harry saw a dusky figure beside a pine not thirty feet away, and he instantly pulled trigger upon it.

His father's own rifle cracked at the same time, and two cries of pain came from the lawn.

The boy, hot with the fire of battle, snatched the pistols out of the holsters and sent in four more shots.
Rapid reports from the other side of the house showed that the defenders there were also repelling attacks.
But Skelly's men, finding that they could not rush the house, kept up a siege from the ambush of the pines.

Bullets rattled like hailstones against the thick brick walls of the house, and several times the smashing of glass told that windows had been shot in.

Harry's blood now grew feverishly hot and his anger mounted with it.