Page:Edward Ellis--Alden the Pony Express Rider.djvu/109

 The face vanished, for the woman was sensible even in her fright. Her two small children had not awakened, and she lay down between them, an arm over each, while a prayer went up to the only sure refuge in time of peril.

Alden was sure that the report of his gun and the outcry of the victim would bring Shagbark to the spot and he was not mistaken. The lad was watching the plain for him when he came silently forward from the rear and spoke:

“Good for ye, younker! I won’t need ye many years under my care to make a fust-class hunter and trapper of ye. How was it?”

His youthful friend told what had occurred.

“Have ye loaded yer gun?”

“Not yet; I didn’t think of it, and have hardly had time.”

“When ye shoot off yer piece, the next thing is to load up ag’in, for ye’re likely to need it mighty sudden; ’tend to that while I take a look round.”

The rifle used in those days was not the modern breech-loader, though they were beginning to come into use, but Alden’s weapon, like those of his friends, carried but the single