Page:Tongues of Flame (1924).pdf/210

 "Hell! He's shot Jim!"

Somebody remarked this curiously; then all at onee everybody was firing—at whatever spot in the green seemed to the firer's fancy the one from which the bullet had sped. The shotguns roared; the rifles and the automatics cracked and spat and spat and cracked. But there came no answer from the island. Yet instead of advancing upon the cove the armada was retiring. Without orders, each engineer, perforce a noncombatant, had instinctively reversed his engine. Eventually the futility of further firing under these conditions made itself apparent.

"Perhaps we got him!" suggested one excited voice.

"Perhaps we didn't too," scorned another. "An Indian would know enough to duck behind a tree. He's probably laying there ready to pick off the next one of us he wants, if we shove in close again."

"Look, I can see a sort of a cabin. By Jinks! It's got a flag on it. What do you know about that! Defying the law with a flag!" Men stared at each other blankly.

"Probably this Indian is in the shack by now. It's log-built—a regular fort."

Everybody took a shot at the shack on the chance. There being no responding shot, by a sort of common consent, the armada gradually put about and followed the boat containing the wounded sheriff which was already heading back down the channel. The attack upon Hurricane Island had been repulsed.

As they were lifting him to the ambulance at the dock, Sheriff Hogan murmured: "Get that damned Siwash for this, boys." Then he gulped and died.