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lness, chafed angrily under the infliction. Once more the five horsemen came galloping around us, and discharged their pieces as before; but this time with more effect. A bullet struck Garey in the shoulder, tearing away a patch of his hunting-shirt, and drawing the blood; while another went whizzing past the cheek of Old Rube, creasing his catskin cap! "Hooray!" shouted the latter, clapping his hand over the place where the lead had wounded him. "Clost enough thet wur! Cuss me, eft hain't carried away one o' my ears!" And the old trapper accompanied the remark with a wild, reckless laugh. The rent of the bullet, and the blood upon Garey's shoulder, now fell under his eye, and suddenly changing countenance, he exclaimed-- "By the 'tarnal! yur hit, Bill? Speak, boyee!" "It's nothin'," promptly replied Garey--"nothin'; only a grease. I don't feel it." "Yur sure?" "Sartin sure." "By the livin catamount!" exclaimed Rube, in a serious tone, "we can't stan this no longer. What's to be done, Billee? Think, boy!" "We must make a burst for it," replied Garey; "it's our only chance." "Tur no use," said Rube, with a doubtful shake of the head. "The young fellur mout git clur; but for you 'n me thur's not the shaddy o' a chance. They'd catch up wi' the ole mar in the flappin' o' a beaver's tail, an yur hoss ain't none o' the sooplest. Tur no use." "I tell you it are, Rube," replied Garey impatiently. "You mount the white hoss--he's fast enough--an let the mar slide; or you take mine, an I'll back whitey. We mayent get clar altogether; but we'll string the niggers out on the parairy, an take them one arter another. It's better than stannin' hyar to be shot down like buffler in a penn. What do _you_ think, capt'n?" added he, addressing himself to me. Just then an idea had occurred to me. "Why not gallop to the cliff?" I inquired, looking toward the mesa: "they can't surround us there? With our backs to the rock, and our horses in front of us, we may defy the rabble. We might easily reach it by a dash--" "Scalp me! ef the young fellur ain't right," cried Rube, interrupting my speech. "It's the very idee, plum centre!" "It are!" echoed Garey--"it are! We hain't a second to lose; they'll be round us again in a squ'll's jump. Look yonder!" This conversation had occupied but a few seconds of time. It occurred just after the five horsemen had the second time emptied their guns, and
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