"
No one made any reply to that statement, but even Lite, who never had been
inclined to laugh at him, looked at Applehead with a new respect. The Indians,
having scurried back out of range of Lite's uncomfortably close shooting,
yelled a bedlam of yips and howls and came on again in a closer group than
before, shooting as they rode--at the four men first, and then at the hindmost
pack-horse that gave a hop over the wire left across the gap, and came
galloping heavily after the others. They succeeded in burying a bullet in the
packed bedding, but that was all.
Three hundred yards or so in the lead, the four raced down the long, gentle
slope. A mile or two, perhaps three, they could run before their horses gave
out. But then, when they could run no longer, they would have to stop and
fight; and the question that harped continually through their minds was: Could
they run until they reached Luck and the boys with him? Could they? They did
not even know where Luck was, or what particular angle of direction would
carry them to him quickest. Applehead and Johnny were pointing the way,
keeping a length ahead of the others. But even old Applehead was riding, as he
would have put it, "by-guess and by-gosh" until they crossed a shallow draw,
labored up the hill beyond, and heard, straight away before them, the faint
pop-pop of rifle shots.
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