Page:B M Bower - Heritage of the Sioux.djvu/269

THE STUFF HE IS MADE OF his nose pointed straight out before him, with old Applehead leaning forward and yelling to Johnny with a cracked hoarseness that alone betrayed how far youth was behind him.

They thought at first that he meant to jump the fence, and they knew he could not make it. When they saw that he meant to ride through it, Weary and Pink groaned involuntarily at the certainty of a fall and sickening entanglement in the wires. Only Lite, cool as though he were rounding up milch cows, rode half-turned in the saddle and sent shot after shot back at the line of Navajos, with such swift precision that the Indians swerved and fell back a little, leaving another pony wallowing in the sand and taking with them one fellow who limped until he had climbed up behind one who waited for him.

"Go it, Johnny—dang yore measly hide, go to it! We'll show 'm we ain't so old 'n' tender we cain't turn a trick t' bug their dang eyes out! Bust into it! We'll show 'em!" And Applehead shrilled a raucous range "Hoo-eee-ee!" as Johnny lunged against the taut wires.

It was a long chance he took—a "dang long 257