"Move up, pardner," said he.
The other moved up. Thus the men became possessed of protection from one side. The Indians had vented a yell of rage when the pony had dropped.
Now as each warrior approached a certain point in the circle, he threw his horse back on its haunches, so that in a short time the entire band was once more gathered in a group. Alfred and the outlaw knew that this manoeuvre portended a more serious charge than the impromptu affair they had broken with such comparative ease. An Indian is extremely gregarious when it comes to open fighting. He gets a lot of encouragement out of yells, the patter of many ponies" hoofs, and the flutter of an abundance of feathers. Running in from the circ.u.mference of a circle is a bit too individual to suit his taste.
Also, the savages had by now taken the measure of their white opponents.
They knew they had to deal with experience. Suspicion of this must have been aroused by the practised manner in which the men had hobbled their horses and had a.s.sumed the easiest posture of defence. The idea would have gained strength from their superior marksmanship; but it would have become absolute certainty from the small detail that, in all this hurl and rush of excitement, they had fired but five shots, and those at close range. It is difficult to refrain from banging away for general results when so many marks so loudly present themselves. It is equally fatal to do so. A few misses are a great encouragement to a savage, and seem to breed their like in subsequent shooting. They destroy your own coolness and confidence, and they excite the enemy an inch nearer to that dead-line of the l.u.s.t of fighting, beyond which prudence gives place to the fury of killing. An Indian is the most cautious and wily of fighters before he goes mad: and the most terribly reckless after. In a few moments four of their number had pa.s.sed to the happy hunting-grounds, and they were left, no nearer their prey, to contemplate the fact.
The tornado moved. It swept at the top jump of ponies used to the chase of the buffalo, as sudden and terrible and imminent as the loom of a black cloud on the wings of storm, and, like it, seeming to gather speed and awfulness as it rushed nearer. Each rider bent low over his pony"s neck and shot--a hail of bullets, which, while most pa.s.sed too high, nevertheless shrieked and spun through the volume of coa.r.s.er sound. The ponies stretched their necks and opened their red mouths and made their little feet go with a rapidity that twinkled as bewilderingly as a picket-fence pa.s.sing a train. And the light snow swirled and eddied behind them.
The two men behind the dead horse were not deceived by this excitement into rising to their knees. They realised that this was the critical point in the fight, and they shot hard and fast, concentrating all the energy of their souls into the steady glare of their eyes over the sights of the smoking rifles. In a moment the foremost warrior was trying to leap his pony at the barrier before him, but the little animal refused the strange jump and shied to the left, cannoning and plunging into the stream of braves rushing in on that side. Into the confusion Alfred emptied the last two shots of his Winchester, and was fortunate enough merely to cripple a pony with one of them. The kicking, screaming, little beast interposed a momentary but effective barrier between the sheriff and his foes. A rattling fire from one of his six-shooters into the brown of the hesitating charge broke it. The self-induced excitement ebbed, and the Indians swerved and swept on by.
On the other side, the outlaw had also managed to kill a pony within a few feet of the impromptu breastwork, and, direct riding-down being thus prevented in front, he was lying stretched on his side, coolly letting off first one revolver then the other in the face of imminent ruin.
Alfred"s attentions, however, and the defection of the right wing, drove these savages, too, into flight. Miraculously, neither man was more than scratched, though their clothes and the ground about them showed the marks of bullets. Strangely enough, too, the outlaw"s other pony stood unhurt at a little distance whither the rush of the charge had carried him. Alfred arose and drove him back. Then both men made a triangular breastwork of the two dead horses and their saddles.
"Cyan"t do that more"n once," observed the outlaw, taking a long breath.
"They don"t want her more"n once," replied Alfred, sagely.
The men tried to take score. This was not easy. Out of the hundred and twelve cartridges with which they had started the fight, there remained sixty-eight. That meant they had expended thirty-nine in the last charge alone. As near as they could make out, they had accounted for eight of the enemy, four in the melee just finished. Besides, there were a number of ponies down. At first glance this might seem like poor shooting. It was not. A rapidly moving figure is a difficult rifle-mark with the best of conditions. In this case the conditions would have rendered an Easterner incapable of hitting a feather pillow at three yards.
And now began the most terrible part of this terrible day. A dozen of the warriors dismounted, made a short circle to the left, and disappeared in a thin growth of dried gra.s.ses, old mulliens, and stunted, scattered brush barely six inches high. There seemed hardly cover enough to hide a man, and yet the dozen were as completely swallowed up as though they had plunged beneath the waters of the sea.
Only occasionally the top of a gra.s.s tuft or a greasewood shivered. It became the duty of Alfred and his companion to shoot suddenly and accurately at these motions. This was necessary in order to discourage the steady concealed advance of the dozen, who, when they had approached to within as few yards as their G.o.d of war would permit, purposed to rush in and finish their opponents out of hand. And that rush could never be stopped. The white men knew it perfectly well, so they set conscientiously to work with their handful of cartridges to convince the reds that it is not healthy to crawl along ridge-tops on an autumn day.
Sundry outlying Indians, with ammunition to waste, took belly and knee rests and strengthened the thesis to the contrary.
The brisk fighting had warmed the contestants" blood. Now a cold wind penetrated through their woollens to the goose-flesh. It was impossible to judge of the effect of the shots, but both knew that the accuracy of their shooting was falling off. Clench his teeth as he would, hold his breath as steadfastly as he might, Alfred could not accomplish that steady, purposeful, unblinking pressure on the trigger so necessary to accuracy. In spite of himself, the rifle jerked ever so little to the right during the fall of the hammer. Soon he adopted the expedient of pulling it suddenly which is brilliant but uncertain. The ground was very cold. Before long both men would have felt inclined to risk everything for the sake of a little blood-stimulating tramp back and forth. The danger did not deter them. Only the plainsman"s ingrained horror of throwing away a chance held them, shivering pitiably, to their places.
Still they managed to keep the dozen at a wary distance, and even, they suspected, to hit some. This was the Indians" game--to watch; to wait; to lie with infinite patience; to hitch nearer a yard, a foot, an inch even; and then to seize with the swiftness of the eagle"s swoop an opportunity which the smallest imprudence, fruit of weariness, might offer. One by one the precious cartridges spit, and fell from the breech-blocks empty and useless. And still the tufts of gra.s.s wavered a little nearer.
"I wish t" h.e.l.l, stranger, you-all hadn"t edged off south," chattered Alfred. "We"d be nearer th" Pierre trail."
"I"m puttin" in my spare wishin" on them Injins," shivered the other; "I sure hopes they aims to make a break pretty quick; I"m near froze."
About two o"clock the sun came out and the wind died. Though its rays were feeble at that time of year, their contrast with the bleakness that had prevailed during the morning threw a perceptible warmth into the crouching men. Alfred succeeded, too, in wriggling a morsel of raw bacon from the pack, which the two men shared. But the cartridges were running very low.
"We establishes a dead-line," suggested Alfred. "S" long as they slinks beyond yonder greasewood, they lurks in safety. Plug "em this side of her."
"C"rrect," agreed the stranger.
This brought them a season of comparative quiet. They even made out to smoke, and so were happy. Over near the hill the body of Indians had gone into camp and were taking it easy. The job of wiping out these troublesome whites had been sublet, and they wasted no further anxiety over the affair. This indifference irritated the outlaw exceedingly.
"d.a.m.n siwashes!" he grumbled.
"Look out!" warned Alfred.
The dead-line was overpa.s.sed. Swaying tufts of vegetation marked the rapid pa.s.sage of eel-like bodies. The Indians had decided on an advance, being encouraged probably by the latter inaccuracy of the plainsmen"s fire. Besides, the day was waning. It was no cat-and-mouse game now; but a rush, like the other except that all but the last twenty or thirty yards would be made under cover. The besieged turned their attention to it. Over on the hill the bucks had arisen from their little fires of buffalo chips, and were watching. On the summit of the farther ridge rode silhouetted sentinels.
Alfred selected a tuft and fired just ahead of it. A _crack_ at his side indicated that the stranger, too, had gone to work. It was a discouraging and nervous business. The shooter could never tell whether or not he had hit. The only thing he was sure of was that the line was wriggling nearer and nearer. He felt something as though he were shooting at a man with blank cartridges. This test of nerve was probably the most severe of the fight.
But it was successfully withstood. Alfred felt a degree of steadiness return to him with the excitement and the change of weather. The Winchester spat as carefully as before. Suddenly it could no longer be doubted that the line was beginning to hesitate. The outlaw saw it, too.
"Give it to "em good!" he cried.
Both men shot, and then again.
The line wavered.
"Two more shots will stop "em!" cried the road-agent, and pulled the trigger. The hammer clicked against an empty chamber.
"I"m done!" he cried, hopelessly. His cartridges were gone.
Alfred laid his own Winchester on the ground, turned over on his back, and puffed a cloud of smoke straight up toward the sky.
"Me, too," said he.
The cessation of the shooting had put an end to the Indians"
uncertainty. Another moment would bring them knowledge of the state of affairs.
"Don"t get much outen my scalp, anyway," said Alfred, uncovering his bald head.
The sentinel on the distant ridge was riding his pony in short-looped circles and waving a blanket in a peculiar way above his head. From the gra.s.s nine Indians arose, stooped, and scuttled off like a covey of running quail. Over by the fires warriors were leaping on their ponies, and some were leading other ponies in the direction of the nine. An air of furtive but urgent haste characterised all these movements. Alfred lent an attentive ear.
"Seems a whole lot like a rescue," he remarked, quietly. "I reckon th"
boys been followin" of my trail."
The stranger paused in the act of unhobbling the one remaining pony. In the distance, faintly, could be heard cheers and shots intended as encouragement.
"They"s comin" on th" jump," said Alfred.
By this time the stranger had unfastened the horse.
"I reckon we quits," said he, mounting; "I jest nat"rally takes this bronc, because I needs him more"n you do. So long. I may "s well confide that I"m feelin" some glad jest now that them Injins comes along."
And then his pony fell in a heap, and began to kick up dirt and to snort blood.
"I got another, so you just subside a lot," commanded Alfred, rec.o.c.king his six-shooter.
The stranger lay staring at him in astonishment.
"Thought you was busted on catridges!" he cried.
"You-all may as well know," snapped Alfred, "that"s long as I"m an officer of this yere district, I"m a sheriff first and an Injin-fighter afterward."
"What the h.e.l.l!" wondered the road-agent, still in a daze.
"Them"s th" two catridges that would have stopped "em," said Alfred.