Page:Hendryx--Connie Morgan with the Mounted.djvu/138

120 a tree-stump, now dropping to one knee and firing, so that the little puffs of blue smoke blurred the hideous distinctness of gaping mouths and glaring eyeballs. Many were stopped in their advance, some pitching forward to lie still and inert among the weeds, others leaping high in the air to fall into a grotesque crumpled mass while their rifles struck the rocks with the sharp ring of steel, and still others, pausing, staggered ahead, and sank slowly to the ground to load and fire weakly.

There was the sound of tearing wood. A sharp pain stung the boy's cheek, and the air seemed filled with flying chips. He put his hand to his face and tugged at a sliver the thickness of a lead pencil that protruded from his jaw. The sliver yielded, and warm blood tickled his neck as it trickled beneath his soft collar. A Brushwood staggered past, screaming and dragging his rifle. Connie jammed his magazine full and turned again to his loophole, whose edge was splintered and torn at the point where he had been sighting.

There was a dull, scrunching thud above him. A rifle slipped past, grazing his shoulder, and clattered on the rocks at his feet. The body of a man followed the rifle, sliding slowly down the