THE PONY RIDERS UNDER FIRE
With many a whoop and hurrah, the boys dashed into the home camp in
the early forenoon of the following day.
Lige had left them three miles down the trail, that he might make a
short cut to Eagle Pass for the purpose of getting word to the parents
of the boys, that their trip had been concluded, and asking that
directions for their further journeys might be sent to them at Denver,
where they were to travel by easy stages.
The trail to camp being clear and easily followed, he felt no
apprehension in allowing them to go on alone.
"Halloo the camp!" shouted Ned, hurling his sombrero on high, riding
under and deftly catching it as it descended.
"Why, there's no one here!" exclaimed Tad Butler, looking about
inquiringly, as they rode in.
Walter swung from his pony, and, hurrying to the tents, glanced into
each in turn.
"That's queer. Looks as if no one had been here in a month. Well,
suppose we unpack and wait."
"Somebody has been through these tents in a hurry," declared Tad after
having made a hasty examination on his own account. "Did you notice
that everything in the Professor's tent had been fairly turned inside
out? There are our bows and arrows lying out there near where the camp
fire was."
Now, the boys began to feel real concern.
"Tether the ponies and we will go out and see if we can find them,"
commanded Tad Butler.
"Shall we take our guns?" asked Stacy.
"Better not. Take your bows and arrows if you wish. We are going on
the trail of two-footed game now, and we do not want to have guns. We
might use them and be sorry for it afterwards."
Realizing the wisdom of his words, the boys laid aside their rifles,
grabbed up their bows and quivers, and following Tad, who immediately
struck off in the direction of the cave. Tad's own experience there
was still fresh in memory.
At the entrance, they halted.
"Look at that! What do you think of that?" exclaimed Tad.
Above the entrance to the cave hung suspended a broad strip of
sheeting. On it had been scrawled, evidently with a piece of blunt
lead, the words:
THIS CLAIM BELONGS TO AB DURKIN. KEEP OFF!
The boys gazed at each other in amazement.
"We'll find out whom this claim belongs to!" declared Tad sternly.
"I don't believe what that notice says at all. There is something
more to this than we know about. Who'll go into the cave with me?"
"I will," chorused the boys.
"Follow me, then."
Tad moved forward, with the rest of the boys following closely behind
him. But, as they started, a revolver shot rang out and a bullet sang
by the head of Tad Butler.
"Back to the rocks!" shouted the boy, springing from the open place
where they had been standing, at the same time urging his companions
forward.
"What does this mean?" demanded Ned Rector.
"I don't know. We are in for trouble. Spread out and hide behind
the boulders as well as you can, while we crawl back to camp.
Chunky, you run for Ben Tackers as fast as your fat legs will carry
you!"
With more order than might reasonably have been expected under the
circumstances, the boys retreated rapidly, two more shots zipping over
their heads as they leaped over a projecting ledge and scurried to
cover without losing any time.
"I guess they're trying to scare us, that's all," decided Ned.
They could hear their unseen enemies, clambering down the rough ground
that lay on either side of the cave, evidently bent on following them,
now and then sending a bullet at one or the other of the dodging
figures of the Pony Riders.
"Humph! Looks like it, doesn't it?" snapped Tad.
Suddenly rising to his full height, the boy waved his sombrero and
hailed the men who bad been firing at them.
"Hold on, there! What are you trying to do? You're shooting at us!
You had best look out what you are doing, unless you want to got into
trouble yourselves. I----"
The answer came promptly.
A gun barked viciously, and the plucky lad's sombrero was snipped from
his hand, with a bullet hole through its broad brim.
Tad ducked behind a rock with amazing quickness.
"Spread out a little more, fellows. It won't be so easy to hit us," he
commanded. "Walter, you watch out on either side of us, while Ned and
I take care of the front."
"Wish I had my rifle. I'd show them," growled Ned.
"I don't," snapped Tad. "We've got trouble enough as it is."
The boys had been carrying on their conversation in low tones, that
they might not betray their positions to their enemies.
"Get out of there, you young cubs!" suddenly roared a voice, whose
owner they could not see. "I'll l'arn ye to interfere with other
folks' business. I'll give yer five minutes to shake ther dust of this
hy'ar mounting off yer feet. If any of ye is here then, it'll be the
worse for ye. This claim belongs to Ab Durkin. Now, mosey! D'ye hear?"
Tad Butler did hear. And now he saw as well as heard.
Ab, confident that he had nothing to fear from the boys, had taken his
station on a large boulder, from which position he was giving his
orders to the Pony Riders. Tad, peering from behind the rock where he
had taken refuge, saw an evil face, topped by a weather-worn sombrero,
and, beyoud it, the figures of four other men whose faces he was
unable to make out.
"I say, will ye git?"
"No!" shouted Tad, his face flushing, as all the old fighting spirit
in him came to the surface.
"Then, take the consequences!"
Ab Durkin raised his revolver, peering from rock to rock, not certain
now as to the exact location of the boys. He seemed ready to fire the
instant he made out the mark he was seeking.
Tad Butler never had been more cool in his life, and a strange sense
of elation possessed him.
Motioning to the boys to lie low, Tad fitted an arrow to his bow,
after which he waited a few seconds, keenly watching the enemy and
measuring the distance to him, with critical eyes.
All at once the boy's right arm drew back. There followed a sharp
twang.
"Ouch!"
The mountaineer leaped straight up into the air, which action was
followed by two shots in quick succession, as both of the man's
revolvers were accidentally discharged, the bullets burying themselves
harmlessly in the ground in front of him.
Tad's arrow had sped home. Its blunt end had been driven with powerful
force, straight against the left ear of Ab Durkin, having been
deflected slightly from where Tad had intended to plant it.
"Lie low!" commanded the boy.
The next instant, a shower of revolver shots flattened themselves
against the rocks all about the boys.
"Give them a volley and drop back quickly!" ordered Tad.
Three bows twanged, and yells of rage told the boys that at least some
of their missiles had gone home. This was a different sort of warfare
from anything to which these mountaineers had been accustomed, and,
somehow, it had begun to get on their nerves, desperate men though
they were.
"Follow me. We must change our positions again. They've got our range
now," directed Tad, and the boys, wriggling along on their stomachs,
to the left, dutifully followed their leader.
Tad was heading for a clump of sage brush, so that their operations
might be the better masked. While he was doing so, the mountaineers,
who also had taken to cover, were bombarding the rocks from which the
Pony Riders had just made their escape.
From their new position the boys were overjoyed to find that their
enemies were in plain view.
"Take careful aim, and when I count three, let go at them. See that
not one of you misses," directed the leader.
"Ready, now! One, two, three!"
Three bowstrings sang, and as many mountaineers, with yells of rage,
began shooting, fanning every rock and bush about them, in hopes of
driving from cover their tantalizing opponents.
At first they were at a loss to locate the boys' new position, but,
after a little, as the arrows kept coming persistently from the sage
bush, the mountaineers' bullets began to snip the leaves over the
heads of the Pony Riders.
"Shoot slowly, and make every shot count!" directed Tad with stern
emphasis.
Once, a bullet grazed Tad's left cheek, and Ned Rector narrowly missed
death, escaping with the loss of a lock of hair. With rare
generalship, Tad continually changed their positions, which tactics
also were followed by the mountaineers, all the time crowding the boys
nearer and nearer to their own camp.
Chunky had not yet returned, and Tad devoutly hoped that the boy would
not be rash enough to attempt to do so now.
If anything, the boys thus far had the best of the battle, and
although none had sustained a serious wound, every one of the
mountaineers had marks on his body to show where blunt tipped arrows,
driven by a strong arm, had been stopped.
Now, a new danger menaced the brave little band. Their quivers were
nearly empty. Tad, discovering it, drew his hunting knife from its
sheath, tossing it to Walter Perkins.
"Quick! Cut some sticks and make some arrows. Don't lose a
second. Make them as straight as possible, or we shall be unable to
hit a thing."
By the time their supply had become almost exhausted, Walter had
succeeded in turning out more than half a dozen new arrows. Yet no
sooner had they begun driving these at their enemies than the
mountaineers sent up a yell of defiance. They recognized the
predicament the boys were in.
"Cease firing!" commanded Tad, realizing at once that their enemies
had discovered their plight.
"Fellows, we are about at the end of our rope. Give me the
arrows. Then, you two make your get-away. But be careful not to expose
your bodies to the fire of those brutes. When you get far enough away
run for Ben Tackers' cabin. You can hide there, anyway," directed Tad
Butler.
"Yes, but what are you going to do? You surely don't intend to remain
here?" protested Walter.
"I'm going to cover your retreat. They'll think we have no more
ammunition left and then they'll start to rush us. That's the time
I'll surprise them. We have a few arrows left. They won't be so fast
to----"
"See here, Tad Butler, what do you take us for?" demanded Walter, his
eyes snapping. "Do you think we are going to desert you and leave you
here, perhaps to be killed?"
"While we run away?" added Ned. "I guess not. What breed of tenderfoot
do you think we belong to?"
"No! We stay with you," announced Walter firmly.
"Oh, very well. I'm sorry. Hold your arrows till you have to shoot,
but it would be much better for you to go while you have a chance."
Recognizing the helplessness of the boys, the mountaineers began
moving on their position, revolver shots occasionally zipping against
the rocks. It was almost impossible for the boys to return the fire
with their few remaining arrows, for fear of exposing themselves to
too great danger.
"I guess it's about up with us," said Tad, coolly stringing his last
arrow.