ifle were placed along the edge of the hollow. It was full
time, as the fire of the red sharpshooters was creeping closer, and was
doing much harm. They were Campeachy Indians, whom the Mexicans had
brought with them from their far country and, splendid stalkers and
skirmishers, they were now proving their worth. Better marksmen than the
Mexicans, naked to the waist, their dark faces inflamed with the rage to
kill, they wormed themselves forward like snakes, flattened against the
ground, taking advantage of every hillock or ridge, and finding many a
victim in the hollow. Far back, the Mexican officers sitting on their
horses watched their work with delighted approval.

Ned was not a sharpshooter like the Panther or Davy Crockett, but he was
a sharpshooter nevertheless, and, driven by the sternest of all needs,
he was growing better all the time. He saw another black head raised for
a moment above a hillock, and a muzzle thrust forward, but he fired
first. The head dropped back, but the rifle fell from the arms and lay
across the hillock. Ned knew that his bullet had sped true, and he felt
a savage joy.

The other sharpshooters around him were also finding targets. The Indian
bullets still crashed into the crowded ranks in the hollow, but the
white marksmen picked off one after another in the grass. The moment a
red face showed itself a bullet that rarely missed was sent toward it.
Here was no indiscriminate shooting. No man pulled the trigger until he
saw his target. Ned had now fired four times, and he knew that he had
not missed once. The consuming rage still possessed him, but it was for
the Mexicans rather than the Indians against whom he was sending his
bullets. Surely they were numerous enough to fight the Texans. They
ought to be satisfied with ten to one in their favor, without bringing
Indians also against the tiny settlements! The fire mounted to his
brain, and he looked eagerly for a fifth head.

It was a singular duel between invisible antagonists. Never was an
entire body seen, but the crackling fire and the spurts of flame and
smoke were incessant. After a while the line of fire and smoke on the
prairie began to retreat slowly. The fire of the white sharpshooters had
grown too hot and the Indians were creeping away, leaving their dead in
the grass. Presently their fire ceased entirely and then that of the
white marksmen ceased also.

No sounds came from the Mexicans, who were all out of range. In the
h