Page:Allan Dunn--Dead Man's Gold.djvu/132

118 earth with a fallen splintered cotton wood lying across it. Two Indians were racing wildly down-cañon past the cave, another lay across the dismembered, disembowelled carcass of his pony, himself a bloody mass.

"The dynamite?" said Stone. Harvey nodded.

"I shifted it to Pete this mornin'. The pore cuss has gone out but he sure paid them out for monkeyin' with him. They's one thing," he added, more soberly, "they ain't goin' to let up on us so easy after this."

His reasoning was made evident by the appearance of the remainder of the tribesmen who now came galloping down the cañon with the three other burros of the pack-train. They wheeled for a moment about the remains of their comrades, mutely reading the tragedy and then, with one accord, they faced the cave and, their arms extended, shaking their weapons, yelled in blood-curdling unison.

"We're in for it," said Harvey. "Let 'em have it." The three rifles roared in the hollow. One Indian doubled up, shot through the stomach, sliding from his startled pony. A second gripped at a shattered shoulder. A third rode off among the cottonwoods, swaying in his seat, grip and balance alone sustaining him, a scarlet stream starting to spurt above his left nipple.

"Some shootin'!" exclaimed Harvey as the savages disappeared. "If they'd only show 'emselves we c'ud clean 'em up. Did each of ye hit the one ye aimed at?" he asked, half quizzically.