Page:Bacheller--D'ri and I.djvu/150

D'RI AND I those big-winged Vespæ. It was terrible, the swift charge of that winged battalion of the air. I heard howls of pain below me, and the thunder of rushing feet. The horses were rearing and plunging, the men striking with their hats.

I heard D'ri shouting and laughing at his window.

"Give 'em hell, ye little blue devils!" he yelled; and there was all evidence that they understood him.

Then, again, every man of us opened his window and fired a volley at the scurrying mass.

One horse, rearing and leaping on his hind legs, came down across the back of another, and the two fell heavily in a rolling, convulsive heap. One, as if blinded, bumped a tree, going over on his withers, all fours flashing in the air. Some tore off in the thickets, as unmanageable as the wild moose. More than half threw their riders. Not a man of them pulled a trigger: they were busy enough, God knows. Not one of them could have hit the sky with any certainty. I never saw such a torrent of horsehair and red caps.