ran, myself,
when they were after me."

"He'd better run," Susie replied. "But he's after his gun; he means to
fight."

"He'll make it!" McArthur cried.

Susie's voice suddenly rang out in an ascending, staccato-like shriek.

"Oh! Oh! Oh! Mother, go back!" but the cracking rifles drowned Susie's
shrill cry of entreaty.

The Indian woman, with her hands high above her head, the palms open as if
to stop the singing bullets, rushed from the house and stopped only when
she had passed Smith and stood between him and danger. She stood erect,
unflinching, and while the Indians' fire wavered Smith gained the
doorway.

Gasping for breath, his short upper lip drawn back from his protruding
teeth in the snarl of a ferocious animal, he snatched a rifle from the
deer-horn gun-rack above the door.

The Indian woman was directly in line between him and his enemies.

"Get out of the way!" he yelled, but she did not hear him.

"The fool!" he snarled. "The fool! I'll have to crease her."

He lifted his rifle and deliberately shot her in the fleshy part of her
arm near the shoulder. She whirled with the shock of it, and dropped.

XVIII

A BAD HOMBRE

The Indians ceased firing when the woman fell, and when Susie reached her
mother Smith was helping her to her feet, and it was Smith who led her
into the house and ripped her sleeve.

It was only a painful flesh-wound, but if the bullet had gone a few inches
higher it would have shattered her shoulder. It was a shot which told
Smith that he had lost none of his accuracy of aim.

He always carried a small roll of bandages in his hip-pocket, and with
these he dressed the woman's arm with surprising skill.

"When you needs a bandage, you generally needs it bad," he explained.

He wondered if she knew that it was his shot which had struck her. If she
did know, she said nothing, though her eyes, bright with pain, followed
his every movement.

"Looks like somebody's squeaked," Smith said meaningly to Susie.

"Nobody's squeaked," she lied glibly. "They're mad, and they're
suspicious, but they didn't see you."

"If they'd go after me like that on suspicion," said Smith dryly, "looks
like they'd be plumb hos-tile if they was sure. Is this here war goin' to
keep up, or has they had satisfaction?"

Through Susie, a kind of armistice was arranged between Smith and the
Indians. It took much argument to induce them to defer their vengeance and
let the law take its course.