'Fagan--slew--my--father?' she panted. 'And you--were waiting for us at Wayside. The cowboy was right.' She swayed like a sapling in the breeze but steadied herself when he advanced, 'Don't touch me, you murderer.' Nor did he stay her, when with stumbling steps, she ran towards the tent. Snowy came to meet her.
'Take me away, Uncle Phil, anywhere,' she sobbed.
The old man put an arm round her. 'We gotta be patient, honey,' he said. 'They'd just naturally shoot us down. Things'll come right.'
'I've no one but you.'
'Well, I wouldn't say just that. There's a young fella not so far off mightn't agree.' It brought the colour into her cheeks again; the thought of Gerry was very pleasant. 'I expect he's forgotten,' she whispered.
'When I see him last he was mighty partic'lar in his inquiries,' Snowy lied cheerfully.
Lesurge was giving orders to Fagan. 'That old fraud and the girl must be watched,' he concluded. 'By the way, she knows you assisted her father into the next world.'
'The hell she does'?' the other growled. 'Who told her?'
'Lora, I expect,' Paul prevaricated. 'She can prove nothing, and out here . . .' He shrugged his shoulders. 'Of course, if she took the story to that gun-slinger, Sudden ... ' Fagan's alarmed expression told him that Mary Ducane would be well guarded.
'Get busy,' he said, 'and we'll smoke those rats out of their hole.'
* * *
The morning sun shone down upon a saddened but grimly determined group in the Rocking Stone mine.
'They'll strike to-day,' Sudden said, and no one doubted it.
Jacob and Humit were placed on guard, while the rest dug and washed for gold, their rifles beside them. The two cowboys were working together, glumly and silently. Both were seeing visions: Sudden, of an apparently fear- distraught, frantic woman, and Gerry, a pair of frosty blue eyes, in a proud little face, rosily indignant because he had told the owner he meant to marry her.
'Damnation!' he said presently.
'Scratched yore finger?' Sudden asked solicitously.
'No, broke my neck,' Gerry retorted, and then, 'Wonder if she's all right?'
'Reckon so--her brother'll look after her,' was the reply. 'What the ?' Gerry commenced, adding, as comprehension came to him, 'I warn't thinkin' o' Miss Lesurge.'
'No?' his friend asked innocently.
'Yo're the wise guy, ain't yu?' Gerry gibed. 'S'pose yu tell me how them poison-toads is goin' to get us outa here?'
'They might starve us, or plug the outlet o' the creek an' flood the basin--the entrance bein' considerable above the floor level,' Sudden pointed out. 'But both them methods is kind o' slow, an' I'd say--' Crack! The spiteful report of a rifle rang out and Husky swung round, clutching his left arm.
'Hell's bells, yu got yore answer,' Sudden swore, and jumped for his Winchester.
A thinning puff of smoke showed that the shot had come from the slope leading to the Rocking Stone, and a moment later, three others, from different points, followed. One swept Gerry's hat from his head, while another whistled uncomfortably close to his companion's ear. Sudden flung himself at full length behind a heap of gravel.
Gerry spread himself beside his friend. The pile, woefully small even for one, was the only cover available.
Husky and Rogers, who were nearer the camp, made a bolt and reached it safely.
'Good for them,' Sudden commented. 'But now we'll have all the attention.' Four bullets which ploughed through the gravel in front of them endorsed his remark. Gerry wriggled and cursed. 'Yu hit?' Sudden asked anxiously.
'Stone cut my cheek,' was the reply. 'It's like bein' peppered with a scatter-gun.' He pushed up a rampart of gravel, only to have it dispersed by another volley. 'May the bones rot in their bodies,' he added viciously, as he spat out a mouthful of grit.
They had been firing at intervals, largely to relieve their feelings, for they had nbthing to aim at save the rocks which sheltered the marksmen.
'I never thought the day would come when I'd want to see Angel-face,' Sudden said whimsically.
'Lesurge is the jigger I'd admire to get a bead on,' Gerry replied. 'If he shows hisself, don't yu trouble to fire.' But their wishes were to go unsatisfied. Instead, they got a perfect hail of bullets and before it their flimsy defence rapidly disintegrated. It became obvious that, in a few moments, their position would be untenable; both were cut and bruised by flying pebbles, and several times, each had escaped death by a bare inch.
'They're turnin' the damn place into a lead-mine,' Sudden remarked. 'We gotta run for it. Get ready.' They waited until a lull in the fusillade suggested that the snipers might be reloading, and Sudden gave the word. Leaping to their feet, they raced for shelter, zigzagging as they went. Shots zipped past them, flinging up the dust on every side, but they reached the rest of the band unscathed. Both were winded, for it was uphill, and the loose sand and gravel made speed an achievement; also, their high-heeled cowboy boots were not built for sprinting. Sudden's first question was addressed to Husky:
'Hurt much?'
'Flesh wound--nothin' bruk--smarts a few,' the miner grinned. 'There's on'y four shootin'; where's the other two?'
'Watchin' Snowy an' the women, I'd say,' the puncher surmised. 'An' I'm bettin' Lesurge is one of 'em; he ain't the sort to risk his hide.'
'Yu'd shorely win,' Rogers chimed in. 'What's the next move, Jim?'
'We'll clear out an' get the hosses.'
'An' let 'em grab the mine?' Humit asked disappointedly.
'We can get it back when we want,' Sudden argued. 'One good shot up on the slope can make this place impossible; with the rest of us workin' this end, we'd have 'em comin' an' goin'.'
'She's a good scheme,' Rogers agreed. 'If they'd thought o' that, we'd be out on a limb right now.' Taking only their weapons and a small supply of food, they set out for the spot where they had hidden the horses. This was a good half-mile distant, and to the east, where the enemy would be unlikely to chance upon them, for to be set afoot in the Black Hills would have been a calamity.
* * The ignominious retreat of the cowboys had evoked derision among the sharp-shooters, mingled with disgust at their own failure to bowl over at least one of them.
'See 'em run,' Lem called to Fagan, who was about a dozen yards distant. 'Skippin' like a couple o' jack- rabbits.' He waited a while, balanced his hat on the barrel of his gun, and raised it cautiously above the boulder behind which he was crouching. Nothing happened, and after another wait, he rose slowly to his full height. The expected shot did not come; the hollow was clearly deserted.
'They've pulled their freight,' he announced.
One by one the other marksmen emerged from their shelters and joined him.
'What's to do now?' Berg asked.
'Git our tools an' collar the mine. What d'you s'pose?'
'They may come back.'
'Then we'll stand 'em off,' Fagan retorted. 'But I figure it this way; they must 'a' cleaned up a lot o' dust while we was foolin' in that damned ravine and they're content to get away with that--playin' safe, like. If it ain't so, why let us in an' have all the trouble o' drivin' us out again?' The others agreed that his reasoning was sound, and they all slithered along the slope until they reached the spot where Paul, Snowy, and the girl were waiting, the latter two with their wrists bound. Their gaoler, pacing restlessly back and fore, was silent, but there was a look in his dark eyes which filled her with fear. The men appeared, and Fagan made his report.
'You are probably right but Lem had better make sure,' Paul decided.
The scout reached the camp almost as soon as they. He was jubilant.
'They've flew the coop, shore enough,' he said. 'An' they went in a hurry--left their tools an' some grub behind. The hosses ain't there neither.'
'Good, that'll save us totin' a lot o' truck up there,' Fagan chuckled. 'C'mon, boys, let's git agoin'.' Lesurge stepped forward. 'Wait a moment, Fagan; I think I command here.' The man turned; whether by accident or
