“The coach itself, drawn by four horses.”
“Are you going?” asked McConnell, his eyes twitching with excitement.
“Of course,” replied Allan; but he could not have concealed his nervousness.
As the coach drew nearer the grand stand the boys rose and clambered down the steps to the main entrance; and, when the coach stopped, they walked falteringly forward, expecting the man at the bars to ask them what they wanted anyway.
But the man at the bars, on a signal from the coach, made way for them, and the old coach door opened. They now saw that there were two men on the front inside seat, and, with several thousand people watching them, the boys climbed in and sat down on the back seat, the door closed, and the coach started forward with a jolt.
The whip cracked and soon came the louder crack of a rifle, then a clatter of shots, and the two men in the coach, each with a rifle, began blazing away through the window at the yelling band of Indians in pursuit. It was all so real, the Indians looked so ferocious, the smoke and flame from the rifles was so thrilling and threatening, that Allan and McConnell found themselves shrinking in expectation of actual bullets.
In the midst of the hubbub Allan saw through the window, almost at his elbow, the now distorted face of Big Wolf, screaming a most frightful note, and apparently on the point at last of getting even with his photographic tormentors.
Then came a new and louder clatter, with fresh yells. The cowboys had come, and, after a wild fusillade, the Indians fled, the smoke cleared away, and the old coach lumbered back to the grand stand, with Allan and McConnell staring, half-dazed, at the two men on the front seat.
“How did you like it?” asked one of the men, as he swung open the door.