ing through on
either flank, which was not at all probable.

Six picked marksmen were concealed under the canvas covers of each of the
wagons, and every man from behind his particular loophole commanded a
wide section of the valley and of the hillside.

The Indians, seeing that the outfit had come to a halt, as if in
submission, delayed their advance while they closed into massed formation
to sweep down upon their unresisting victims in one grand overwhelming
rush. They could see only the three drivers, who had now jumped down to
attend to their mules, and four riders, one of whom was a mere boy.

Clearly, they considered the prairie schooners and their precious
contents already their own, as well as the horses bunched in the rear.
They could not have divined that, apart from the guns carried by the
horsemen, there were eighteen repeating rifles levelled against them from
under the cover of three innocent-looking carts.

Kiddie dismounted, dropped his bridle rein over his pony's head, and took
up a position behind the foot-board of the foremost wagon, from which he
could look forward along the trail, with a rest for his elbows in
levelling his gun. There was a neat little stack of cartridges in their
clips within his easy reach.

"Don't reckon as I touched Broken Feather when I fired that first shot
along there," he remarked to Nick Undrell, who was posted near him.

"That ain't Broken Feather hisself as you's looking at," said Nick,
squinting along the barrel of his Winchester, "though I allows he's
wearin' the chief's dinky head-dress. No, sir, that's Murm'rin' Water,
the boss medicine man. You won't easily reco'nize Broken Feather by his
body coverin'. You'll be a whole lot wiser'n I think you, if you kin
single him out in that crowd. Hullo! Now for it!"

Nick pressed his trigger. The Redskins were charging.

"Let go, boys!" he cried, as a shower of arrows and ill-aimed bullets
peppered against the off sides of the wagons and kicked up spurts of dust
on the trail.

Simultaneously the hidden men in the three carts opened fire. There was
a loud burst of rifle shots, and then a continuous stream, broken only at
momentary intervals as the magazines were refilled and again refilled.

The Indians, taken wholly aback by this unexpected reception of
point-blank fire, swerved in confusion. Many of them tumbled from their
rearing, plunging, staggering ponies. Many of the ponies fell; many
raced back rider