to time Lance caught the booming of six-shooters from the rear of the house, though the attack from that direction was more or less desultory. Lance emptied his gun, loaded and reemptied it he didn’t know how many times. He only realized the weapon was growing hot in his hand. He felt a touch on his arm. Turning, he saw Katherine offering him a loaded Winchester in exchange for the depleted six-gun in his hand. “Good girl,” he grunted. “Better get back in the house though.”
Even while he jerked the Winchester to his shoulder and levered shot after shot from the barrel in the direction of flashes of fire from the brush he felt her fingers tugging at the cartridges in his belt as she reloaded the hand gun. He heard her cool voice saying something about “angry, droning hornets.” He remembered taking his six-shooter from her, and that was all at the time. She had passed on to her uncle.
Again and again Lance fired. Every time he glanced along the rim of the sandbags they seemed to be fringed with living flame. It was hot, sweaty work. Powder smoke hung low along the length of the gallery, stinging eyes and throats and nostrils with its acrid fumes. Sharp lances of flame stabbed viciously from the brush and trees. Now and then a man screamed in agony or yelped with sudden pain. By now the attackers were concentrating on the front of the house. Those within emerged to squeeze down among the men lined behind the barrier of sandbags.
Lance didn’t know how long they’d been fighting, but suddenly he saw that the flashes of gunfire had changed from vivid orange to white and he realized it was daylight. He glanced along the gallery and saw several wounded and dead Yaquentes. Oscar had a bloody gash across the back of one hand; his left cheek bulged with lemon drops. Lanky’s shirt sleeve had been slashed with flying slugs at two places. The building wall behind the fighters was pockmarked as though it had withstood a storm of hailstones. Katherine was moving along the gallery, crouched low, lending such aid as she could to the wounded. Lance yelled at her to get back into the house. He didn’t know what she said in reply. He didn’t have time to listen just then.
A group of about thirty white-clothed forms under big straw sombreros, with bandoleers around their shoulders, came charging out of the brush, their gun muzzles spurting flame and smoke. Lance yelled, “Don’t give an inch, hombres! Pour it on ’em!”
His men responded with a crashing torrent of lead that all but cut the attackers in two. For a brief instant all motion seemed to stand transfixed in the hideous din, and in that instant Lance caught a picture he never forgot. The attackers appeared to hesitate momentarily, then more than two thirds of them bent suddenly at the middle and pitched forward. Others turned and ran back for the brush. Several were limping frantically from the scene. The Yaquentes along the gallery gave a high-pitched yell and renewed their fire. Only a few of the attackers regained the shelter they had left less than a minute before.
Powder smoke hung like a gray blanket between the house and the brush. For a minute the firing of the attackers ceased, then burst forth with a renewed fury that caused the men behind the sandbags to crouch low. A steady, unceasing tattoo of flying lead drummed against the house wall. It seemed it would never stop.
Lance heard the professor’s voice. “Like rain on a tin roof, what?”
“Some storm,” Lance grunted. He lifted his head a trifle to peer above the sandbags. Three bullets instantly drilled holes into his sombrero crown. Lance dropped down with the maximum of haste but he had seen enough to puzzle him.
“That one wagon we placed out there”—he frowned—“it’s only about thirty feet away. I figured it might help slow up a rush. I just saw several men break cover from the brush and run to get behind it. I wonder what they’re up to. If they’re figuring on charging us from there they’ll get a surprise——”
He stopped. An object had been thrown from behind the wagon. Lance saw it skim the top of the sandbags and land among a group of Yaquentes. It looked like a tin can, but…
And then Lance didn’t see the tin can any more. It abruptly disappeared in a burst of white fire and a deafening detonation. A cloud of thick, yellowish smoke enveloped the gallery. Small chunks of rock exploded viciously in all directions.
Lance exclaimed, “My God! They’ve made bombs and——”
He had no time to say more. A tomato can came hurtling through the air to land on the gallery. All in a split instant Lance saw the top had been tied down with hemp cord. From the opening where the can had been cut a length of fuse burned with a fierce sputtering sound. Lance pounced on the can, seized it, hurled it with all his might in the direction of the wagon behind which the bomb throwers were sheltered. He saw it land beneath the wagon. BOOM! Smoke and flame enveloped the wagon. Men rolled on the earth. Several scrambled frantically for the shielding brush.
A cheer ran along the gallery. By now the smoke had cleared. Several forms lay silent and bleeding behind the sandbags. “That’s the game!” Lance yelled. “Throw those cans back when they come over!” He glanced toward the wagon. It was tilted crazily on one side. One wheel was missing. Lance saw a movement up near the front of the vehicle. He thumbed one swift shot, not knowing whether or not he scored. He heard a sudden exclamation from the professor. Jones had gone the color of ashes. One hand was clapped to his forehead in sudden dismay.
“What’s the matter?” Lance yelled through the din of gunfire. “Are you hit?”
The professor shook his head. He lowered the hand from his forehead, and Lance saw that his brow was beaded with tiny beads of perspiration. Jones looked sick. He gulped and stammered, “My—my
He glanced fearfully over his shoulder, then a look of relief passed over his face as he saw the small wooden tub still intact on the recessed window sill. Heedless of the flying lead spattering against the adobe wall, the professor started for his beloved plant with the intention of removing it to the interior of the house.
“Professor!” Lance warned. “Stay down. You’ll be hit!”
The warning came too late. Another tomato can came sailing in behind the sandbags. It bounced once on the gallery floor, then disappeared in a thunderous roar. Even as the smoke spread and billowed along the gallery Lance saw Jones stagger back and fall flat. Bits of rock rattled along the gallery floor and walls. Two Yaquentes were down. Tom Piper had been picked up as though hurled by some giant hand and dashed against the adobe wall to fall in a crumpled heap.
Lance moved swiftly through the drifting powder smoke and reached the professor’s side. Jones was already staggering up. “Not hit,” he gasped. “Force of—explosion—floored me—that’s all. Must get my
He broke away from Lance’s restraining hands and started toward the window sill for his plant. Then he stopped short. An anguished moan left his lips. Bullets were whining all around him, but he didn’t seem to notice them. He was speechless now. There wasn’t any window sill there. The whole window was gone. Left only was a gaping hole in the adobe wall. The professor’s plant had been blown to bits. Not even the slightest bit of earth in which it had been planted remained in sight though a few slivers of splintered wooden tub lay on the gallery floor.
For a brief moment the professor swayed unsteadily like one who has received a death blow. Suddenly his face reddened; his features became contorted with rage; his whole body stiffened. “The dirty blackguard scoundrels!” he stormed furiously, shaking a menacing fist toward the brush and trees. “They should be taught a lesson, what? By Christopher! I’ll show them a thing or two! Destroy the greatest discovery of the century, will they? Not and escape unscathed, the low-lifed, hell-hound mongrels! Not while my name is Ulysses Zarathustra Jones!”
And in that minute the professor went thoroughly berserk. Seizing his gun from the gallery floor, he leaped over the sandbags and charged the enemy single-handed! Lance leaped to catch him but missed. “Professor!” he yelled. “Come back! You’ll be killed! Oh, you fool, you!”
Behind him he heard Katherine’s wailing. “Uncle Uly, come back!”
But their pleas accomplished nothing. Deaf to all entreaty, with but a single thought dominating his movements—that of annihilating the enemy—Jones dashed recklessly into the very teeth of the flame-spitting brush, bullets kicking up sand and gravel all around him as he plunged on!
