The camp, aroused by the shooting, buzzed like a hornet's nest. Lights appeared everywhere. Dark figures streamed out of doorways and thrown tent flaps; and, once outside, stood in helpless uncertainty.
"Coom, coom!" cried Oscar. "Ve gat out of har!" They rose and ran in the dark.
A mighty roar drowned the echoes of the pistol shots, as the bass bellow of his sire might dominate the feeble bleatings of a new-born calf. A vivid flash split the night. In the momentary illumination details were limned sharply—the buildings, the groups of men on one side, the running figures on the other. And poised, stationary, as it seemed, in mid-air, above the instant eruption, hung a mushroom cloud of smoke and dust, specked with fragments of riven wood and shattered concrete. Through the succeeding contrasted blackness the débris thudded upon the earth. With scarcely an interval followed a second shot, a third, a fourth. The air became alive with hurtling masses raining from the heavens.
The four dynamiters reached Wyndham, who, cursing in his excitement, was straining every muscle and a comprehensive vocabulary in an effort to hold the frightened horses.
Casey, McHale, and Sandy seized their nigh stirrups, shot them at their left toes, gripped saddle horns, and went up in an instant. Oscar, less expert, fumbled for a hold with his toe, hopping on his right leg as his horse sidled and backed.
"Stand still, Ay tal you!" he gritted. "By Yudas, Ay club hal from you purty kvick!"
Young McCrae wheeled his horse on the off side and gripped the headstall by the bit. "Up you go!" he cried, and Oscar fell into the saddle, the horn striking him amidships and momentarily checking a torrent of oaths. "Hang on, now!" McCrae ordered and let go.
They shot away with a wild plunge and a scurry of panicky hoofs. The going was rough, but luck was with them. They surged up the coulée, emerging on the higher bench land by the trail.
"Look here, Tom," said Dunne, "what did you want to do the shooting for back there? Afraid I'd get rattled and hit somebody?"
McHale grinned in the darkness. "Not hardly. Mostly, Casey, you mamook tumtum a heap—you look ahead and savvy plenty. You're foolish—the way an old dog fox is. But onct in a while you overlook a bet. You're too plumb modern and up to date."