wn.

Meyer had observed the danger of his officer, and had ordered Kelly to
fire, blazing away too himself. There was a headlong, hasty scramble to
carry off the fallen warriors, and then the assailants swept back to a
point beyond accurate musket shot. Thurstane reached the rear of the train
unhurt, and found the six Mexican cattle-drivers there in a group,
pointing their rifles at such Indians as made a show of charging, but
otherwise doing nothing which resembled fighting. They were obviously
panic-stricken, one or two of them being of an ashy-yellow, their nearest
possible approach to pallor. There, too, was Coronado, looking not exactly
scared, but irresolute and helpless.

"What does this mean?" Thurstane stormed in Spanish. "Why don't you shoot
the devils?"

"We are reserving our fire," stammered Coronado, half alarmed, half
ashamed.

Thurstane swore briefly, energetically, and to the point. "Damned pretty
fighting!" he went on. "If _we_ had reserved our fire, we should all have
been lanced by this time. Let drive!"

The cattle-drivers carried short rifles, of the then United States
regulation pattern, which old Garcia had somehow contrived to pick up
during the war perhaps buying them of drunken soldiers. Supported by
Thurstane's pugnacious presence and hurried up by his vehement orders,
they began to fire. They were shaky; didn't aim very well; hardly aimed at
all, in fact; blazed away at extraordinary elevations; behaved as men do
who have become demoralized. However, as the pieces had a range of several
hundred yards, the small bullets hissed venomously over the heads of the
Indians, and one of them, by pure accident, brought down a horse. There
was an immediate scattering, a multitudinous glinting of hoofs through the
light dust of the plain, and then a rally in prancing groups, at a safe
distance.

"Hurrah!" shouted Thurstane, cheering the Mexicans. "That's very well. You
see how easy it is. Now don't let them sneak up again; and at the same
time don't waste powder."

Then turning to one who was near him, and who had just reloaded, he said
in a calm, strong, encouraging tone--that voice of the thoroughly good
officer which comes to the help of the shaken soldier like a
reinforcement--"Now, my lad, steadily. Pick out your man; take your time
and aim sure. Do you see him?"

"Si, senor," replied the herdsman. His coolness restored by this steady
utterance and these plain, common-sense directions, he