elves be set afoot
out here!"

"I-should-say--NOT!" Andy Green punctuated the sentence with a shot or
two. "Say, I wish they'd quit sneaking around in those trees that way,
so a fellow could see where to shoot!"

A half hour dragged by. From the rim-rock came occasional shots,
to which the besieged could not afford to reply, they were so fully
occupied with holding back those who skulked among the trees. The
horses, fancying perhaps that this was a motion-picture scene, dozed
behind their rock-and-brush shelters and switched apathetically at
buzzing flies and whining bullets alike. Their masters crouched behind
their bowlders and watched catlike for some open demonstration, and
fired when they had the slightest reason to believe that they would hit
something besides scenery.

"Miguel must have upset their plans a little," Luck deduced after a
lull. "They set the stage for us down in that hollow, I guess. You can
see what we'd have been up against if we had ridden ten rods farther,
out away from these rocks and bushes."

"Aw, they wouldn't dast kill a bunch uh white men!" Happy Jack
protested, perhaps for his own comfort.

"You think they wouldn't? Luck's voice was surcharged with sarcasm. What
do you think they're trying to do, then?"

"Aw, the gov'ment wouldn't STAND fer no such actions!"

"Well, by cripes, I hain't aimin' to give the gov'ment no job uh
setting on my remains, investigatin' why I was killed off!" Big Medicine
asserted, and took a shot at a distant grimy Stetson to prove he meant
what he said.

"Say, they'd have had a SNAP if we'd gone on, and let these fellows back
here in the trees close up behind us!" Andy Green exclaimed suddenly,
with a vividness of gesture that made Happy Jack try to swallow his
Adam's apple. "By gracious, it would have been a regular rabbit-drive
business. They could set in the shade and pick us off just as they
darned pleased."

"Aw, is that there the cheerfullest thing you can think of to say?"
Happy Jack was sweating, with something more than desert heat.

"Why, no. The cheerfullest thing I can think of right now is that
Mig, here, don't ride with his eyes shut." He cast a hasty glance of
gratitude toward the Native Son, who flushed under the smooth brown of
his cheeks while he fired at a moving bush a hundred yards back in the
grove.

For another half hour nothing was gained or lost. The Indians fired
desultorily, spatting bit& of lead here and there among the r