Wings of the Wind Part 43

"We'll win to-day," I cried, giving the prairie a searching look above her head, "and after that there's a kingdom waiting for you here!"

"I can feel it beating," she whispered adorably. "But if we----" She could not say it, but let her moist lips cling to mine as if challenging Death to part us.

Who dares measure time when Cupid perches on the clock! 'Twas a wise providence that gave severe St. Gregory the making of our calendar, and not St. Anthony, else some minutes might be spun to days, and hours squeezed to the fraction of a second.

But the ever present danger had not at any time quite ceased to pierce the mist of our paradise. She knew I was keeping a careful watch, even while I held her. Now she drew away, and crossed her arms upon the parapet.

"When things begin to happen," I said, "you must sit on the ground. I won't risk your lovely head above the wall!"

"Why?" she asked. "Aren't two rifles better than one?"

"Yes," I admitted, "but I can't shoot unless you're safe."

"Then don't think of me, at all, for I promise to do whatever you say.

Look," she pointed suddenly. "There they are!--I believe every one of them! Oh, I wonder if they've killed Echochee!"

I, too, wondered; for surely here was the gang that had pursued them--quite a mile out on the prairie, to be sure, but unquestionably Efaw Kotee's band, showing as a black smudge above the gra.s.s. Whether this pack of human wolves had lost the trail of Smilax I would not try to guess, for it was enough to know that they had found our own.

They were still too far off to be counted, but I felt that Doloria had been right in saying every man of them. That would mean eight if Jess and the old chief were along, furious devils demanding their revenge, mad to surround us and take their own good time about placing a shot where it would do the work. It was only fair that she should know the odds, so I put my arm around her, saying:

"When they get nearer, they'll scatter out. Some will stay in front, hiding in the gra.s.s and shooting enough to keep us busy, and others will circle to the trees behind us. It's going to be a close call, sweetheart, but they'll never get in while I'm up."

"I know that," she answered gently. "We may as well be brave and speak of it with indifference; it's easier that way; so I want to tell you that if you--you----" but her voice did choke, yet she raised her chin and calmly finished, "are killed, I'll follow right away. It's infinitely preferable to being taken," she hastily added, seeing my look of horror. "So wait for me just a little while, and I'll catch up with you."

Was there ever such courage! Looking back into her eyes I saw a light that by its own vital force was self-translated, requiring no words, nor the sight of her fingers grasping the handle of that small revolver at her waist, to tell of her determination. In spite of myself I shuddered; yet she was so calm, so wonderful in her abiding faith of catching up with me on that Long Trail that knows no turning back, that my heart, too, burned with a flame more enduring than the love of mortals. Without a word I took the small revolver from her hand, and in its place put mine of larger, more reliable, caliber. Understanding, she looked gratefully up at me, her eyes filling with tears even as she smiled and whispered:

"Now I can do it without being afraid."

"By the G.o.d above us," I groaned in my agony, "you'll never have to! For your sake I'll beat off twice that many men!"

"Then don't think of it again, my ferocious, terrible Chancellor," she laughed a little--but I knew, with a sob tearing at my throat, that her playful mood, intended as a tonic for my nerves, was the bravest thing she had yet done. "Look, Jack! They're doing something!"

"They're spreading out," I said, tensely.

Her excitement suddenly died. In its place came a pathetic look of wistfulness as she raised her face to mine and, with a quick sob, whispered:

"Oh, very own mine, try to let me cook your dinner again to-night?"

CHAPTER XXIII

THE ATTACK

When after this I looked across the parapet I was as a man of highly tempered steel. The compact ma.s.s had begun to disintegrate, spreading in both directions until their flanks must have been an eighth of a mile apart. Then they advanced.

On a guess I judged their line to be quite fifteen hundred yards away because each unit looked about the size of a pea; and, as these represented the upper halves of men, the distance was too great to open fire. So I raised my sight to a thousand yards and waited. My nerves were steady with a purpose deep-set in me, for I was about to shoot for the greatest trophy of my life, so when the line had advanced a third of the way I took careful aim, and fired. A second pa.s.sed; then my target disappeared.

"Is he hit or hiding?" Doloria asked excitedly, adding with a little gasp: "He's. .h.i.t, for some are going to him--see?"

"I believe he is," I agreed, taking another careful aim at one who had not started to his comrade's a.s.sistance. He, too, disappeared, and immediately afterwards all of them ducked from view.

"That's awkward," I growled. "They'll do some crawling up, now!"

"They won't dare come close after that," she cried, "for I know you hit one!" Yet this might have been what Echochee would have called "good-medicine-talk," and while standing ready I warned her not to be too sure, as both men might have dropped only for safety.

It will not seem strange that we both felt some disappointment over the probability of this, if one stops to consider what lurked in the other side of the scales for us.

Heads soon began to bob up nearer, now accompanied by quickly fired shots, and I ordered Doloria to the ground. But with relief I noticed that these shots went wild, many times. .h.i.tting too far away to be heard at all, so our position obviously was as yet undiscovered. The morning sun shone directly in the men's eyes, while the protective coloration of our fort blended most elusively into the background of somber forest.

At the bobbing heads I continued to fire with what quickness I could, sometimes sending a second, third and fourth shot purposely low to probe the gra.s.s where it seemed that a man might be crouching. I could not reasonably have expected to register a hit by this, but it kept them in check, and that was our chief concern. From the beginning I realized that if they got near enough to rush us the night would close over a very silent little fort.

Suddenly Doloria gave a cry that froze my blood, for I thought it meant an attack from the rear.

"Quick--quick! Your matches! Oh, not to have thought of it before!" But this last was added while I dug into my pockets for the precious box.

"You can't do it," I exclaimed.

"I can! Keep them down, and I'll crawl! They won't see me!"

There was wisdom here, and I yielded. Nimbly she climbed the wall, dropped to her hands and knees, and crawled to the prairie. In another minute a string of smoke appeared; then with a bunch of gra.s.s alight she flew from place to place, stooping as she ran, and leaving in her wake a trail of fire. Almost as quickly she was back at my side, breathing fast.

"You glorious genius, we'll win out yet," I yelled.

The gra.s.s was dry and tall and thick, and the wind was blowing smartly.

Fire asks for no better playground, and with incredible swiftness a wall of flame sprang up, crackling and roaring as it spread out fan-wise.

She knew, as did I, that the men would back-fire. But while this would save them from the flames it would at the same time remove their cover, and my rifle could then have a whole man to bite at instead of merely his head and shoulders, or less. They would have no alternative now but to come forward quickly or retreat. I think Doloria realized that anything might be about to happen, for she laid the other rifle in position on the parapet, rather casually asking:

"Will it matter if I stand on the canteens? They raise me just high enough!"

Why should she not be given a chance to fight for her life--at least, until they located our point of concealment and began to concentrate their fire on it. That this would inevitably happen might be a matter of minutes, but until then I thought she had every right to stay. There's no denying, too, that I knew her value.

What was going on behind the wall of racing flame we could not tell. But now it rose majestically, leapt skyward and sank to insignificance. The back-fire had met our own; they had gripped, flared up, and died.

Likewise were our forces about to clash, and perhaps burn out with the heat of human pa.s.sion.

Staring through the smoke we counted seven men running to the rear. They well enough knew the danger of being without cover, and were intending first to get beyond our range and then bring the fight back by some other means. Shooting fast I heard Doloria give several quick gasps of excitement as I knocked up the ash dust close to them, and although, their number was not reduced we gained a feeling of greater security to find the fort more impregnable than I had prophesied.

But our budding hope lasted about as long as it took us to conceive it.

One of the fellows suddenly changed his direction, waving as he ran, and the others dashed after him. Then we, too, saw the discovery he had made, and it filled me with a sense of desperation.

This was a long, low line of green, indicating a ditch, or slough, edged with saw-palmettoes and bay bushes, that began at some indefinite northwestward point and diagonally crossed the prairie until it pa.s.sed around our Oasis scarcely more than a hundred feet away. Heretofore, completely hidden by the tall gra.s.s, I had had no idea of its existence, and neither had the men, until Doloria's torch changed the prairie to a charred waste. In reality it was the outlet from our spring, and I knew that it must be fairly wide because the fire had not jumped it.

To Efaw Kotee's band it offered both an immediate cover and a place from which to carry on the fight; moreover, by following it toward us, they could reach the Oasis and eventually creep up behind so near that a well-directed shot in my head would be only a question of persistence and time.

Doloria must have understood this, and for the first time she began to fire, yet at nearly a thousand yards, when one's target not only moves but looks small and black upon a blackened background, and is made further elusive by a haze of smoke, only luck can hit it. Still we played that luck to the last card, until one by one the men made safe and disappeared. Then she laid her rifle on the parapet, and I think took a long breath. For a moment neither of us spoke, each being afraid of saying too much, perhaps.