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Politics and graft and pull, things hitherto unknown, soon wrote their hurrying story also over all this newly won region from which the rifle-smoke had scarcely yet cleared away. But every herd which passed north for delivery of one sort or the other advanced the education of the cowman, whether of the northern or the southern ranges.
He backed the horse and heavy cart, turned both, half blinded by the rifle-smoke, and started up the incline. Two bullets, speeding over the clover like singing bees, rang loudly on the iron-bound cartwheels; the horse plunged and swerved, dragging Jack with him, and the dead figure, kneeling in the cart, tumbled over the tail-board with a grotesque wave of its stiffening limbs.
McCraw's onset passed along our extreme left; the volleys grew furious; the ghastly cock-crow rang out shrill and piercing, and we fired at long range where the horses were passing through the rifle-smoke. Then, in the roar of the fusillade, a bright flash lighted up the forest; a thundering crash followed, and the storm burst, deluging the woods with rain.
The blue rifle-smoke was in her eyes and nostrils, the Mauser bullets pattered like hail on the road; and still Aquila galloped on, never turning his head, never slackening his mighty stride, and still the road rushed by, and the turn by the hill grew nearer nearer Pah! Rita felt her companion wince. His left arm relaxed its hold and dropped at his side.
They were within ten feet of each other, and they recognized each other, for the hunter saw that it was a singed Bear with a wounded side, and the Bear smelt the rifle-smoke and the leather clothes. Quick as a Grizzly that is, quicker than a flash the Bear reared. The man sprang backward, tripped and fell, and the Grizzly was upon him.
"You've got him, sir!" exclaimed Roderick, in an eager whisper, and still keeping his head down; but seeing that the other stag had caught sight of the rifle-smoke and was off at the top of his speed, he rose from his place of concealment and jumped on to the rock that had been hiding him. "Ay, ay, sir, he'll no go far," he cried to Lionel, who was scrambling up to the same place.
Rifle-smoke and clouds of dust and gray mist shot through with flashes of powder, and the awful rage, as if all the demons of Hell were crying vengeance, are all in that picture burned into my memory with a white-hot brand. And above all these there come back to me the faces of that little band of resolute men biding the moment when the command to charge should be given.
The immediately previous elements drifted across the scene like rifle-smoke on the morning breeze, making no more impression on the world's knowledge. They recorded little, and, so far as information was concerned, they might almost as well never have set foot in the wilderness.
And now he made out their band, plodding stolidly along, trombones and bass-drums wheezing and banging away in the rifle-smoke; he could even see the band-master swinging his halberd forward. Suddenly the nearest column broke into a heavy run, cheering hoarsely.
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