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They had no such horses as that among all that he and Two Arrows had found for them. The warrior was looking in the opposite direction at the instant, but he was also wheeling his horse, and in a second or so more he caught sight of Sile. He had a lance, but it was slung behind him, and in his hands was as good a repeating-rifle as Sile's own, and he raised it like a flash.
The magazine of the repeating-rifle emptied, Saxham calmly refilled it, causing the puzzled patriarch to waste many cartridges in wild shooting at that erect, indifferent mark, and finally to abandon the level-headed caution to which he owed his venerable years, and climb a tree to obtain a better view of the tactics of the enemy. Saxham laughed as the invisible hornets sang in the air about him.
There were some old clothes in the ramshackle deal wardrobe; there was some linen and underclothing in the knobless chest of drawers. With the exception of a Winchester repeating-rifle in excellent condition, a bandolier and ammunition-pouch, a hunting-knife and a Colt's revolver of large calibre, in addition to the weapon he carried, there was not an article of property of any value in the room.
"That Winchester has spoken eight or ten times," said the leader, counting the shots fired by somebody away in the dark recesses of the forest from a powerful repeating-rifle. "Let's give the fellow, whoever he is, an answer, Joe!" He seized his own rifle hastily, loaded the magazine with blank cartridges, and fired a noisy salute.
He sprang to his feet, and stood a moment or two shivering a little as he looked about him. It was very cold, and the little open space where the tent stood was flooded with silvery light, though here and there the shadows of the firs fell athwart it black as ink and sharp as a fretwork cut in ebony. Then he saw Saunders close beside him, fumbling with the magazine of his repeating-rifle.
John Ross may well have been excused for shaking as he held up his lantern in his right hand and threw its rays upon the tall undergrowth ahead, while his fingers tightened like bands of steel around the stock of his repeating-rifle. As he and his companions looked, they saw peeping through the foliage a black, fierce face, one of the ugliest and most ferocious that man could have imagined.
When Two Arrows parted from Sile he was well aware that the errand of the Red-head had more real peril in it than his own, and he would not have had him armed with only a bow and arrows; but oh how he did long for a repeating-rifle for his own use!
So thought the farmer's son, who took the chance to test his new American .22-bore repeating-rifle, now that all the keepers were well out of the way. And he had come mighty close to bagging the old cock-bird, too. "As near as made no odds," he said, which was true, but only the old bird himself knew quite the closeness of the call.
"Your eyes are pretty good ones, too. Who knows but what you might see something. Jedge, I won't run him into any danger. Them Indians is all on foot." Sile set to work at once upon his repeating-rifle, his revolver, and the edge of his hunting-knife, as if he had a battle with Pawnees on hand. He gave up studying the ruins at once, and even forgot how many nuggets his gold had been run into.
The girl did not join in her mother's laugh, though the corners of her mouth twitched faintly. I like shooting, myself," said Clayton. "I would go into a match, but I'm afraid I wouldn't have much chance." "I reckon not, with that short thing? " said the old woman, pointing at his repeating-rifle. "Would ye shoot with that?" Oh, yes," answered Clayton, smiling; "it shoots very well." "How fer?"
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