Page:The Road to Monterey (1925).pdf/306

 "God protect him!" said Felipe. "Back—back to the shelter of the bosque until one of us returns!"

The officer had halted his little cavalcade, alarmed by the passing of somebody on his flank, whose noise he heard in the bosque like a whirlwind, but whose form he did not see. He was turning inquiringly, hand going slowly, as if he questioned the need of it, to his pistol; the man in the saddle behind him was leaning back on his hardmouthed mount, holding the beast with curses; the soldier who rode the ammunition-box stood half-risen, braced by rigid arms.

A sudden dash of hoofs in the road ahead of them, a clatter of galloping, a wild yell. The officer in advance—Henderson never knew what rank it was he held—snatched his pistol and fired one quick wild shot at the rider who leaped into his astonished sight around the bend in the road. This duty done to his honor and his country, the officer wheeled his horse and galloped away.

The man on the ammunition-box leaped over the wheel, tumbled into the roadside bosque, disappeared like a rabbit; the postilion lifted his hands high above his head, straining to his tiptoes in his stirrups to stretch them higher, begging for mercy, his fear no doubt making every grain of dust that rose behind Henderson a terrible American, such as took no aim but'never missed.

Felipe came charging through the curtain of