Page:Mary Rinehart - More Tish .djvu/62

 54  Aggie's revolver, which he mostly carried in his hip pocket, and, going to the mouth of the cave, listened carefully. Everything was quiet. The cave and both sides of the valley were in deep shadow, but over the ridge of the Camel's Back across from us there was still a streak of red sunset light. Mr. Muldoon looked and pointed.

Against the background of crimson cloud a man's figure stood out clearly. He was peering down toward us, although in the dusk he could hardly have seen us, and he carried a gun. Mr. Muldoon smiled faintly.

"Well, they've spotted me, I guess," he said. "I'd better move on before I get you into trouble. They won't hurt women."

"Why don't you shoot him?" Aggie asked. "It would be one bandit less. If you do arrest him, and he gets nearly all his sentence off for good behavior, he'll be out again in no time, doing more mischief."

But at that moment we saw the man on the hill throw his gun to his shoulder and aim at some thing moving below in the valley. Aggie screamed, and I believe I did also.

"Tish!" cried Aggie. "He's shooting at Tish!" And at that instant the bandit fired. He fired three times, and the noise of his gun echoed backward and forward among the hills. We thought