He showed, as Piegan put it, very shortly. From the top of the opposite bank he fired a shot or two, and drew for the first time a return from the enemy. Then he broke off, and when he next gave hint of his whereabouts, it was to hail us from the nearest point on the canyon rim.
"Quit your hide-out and pull for the mouth of the gorge. Quick! I'll be there."
"What the hell's up now!" Piegan muttered. "Well, I guess we'll have t' take a chance. If they don't wing us before we get across this bald place, we'll be all right. Run like yuh was plumb scairt t' death, Flood."
We sprinted like a pair of quarter-horses across the thirty yards of bare ground that spread in front of the rock, a narrow enough space, to be sure, but barren of cover for a jack-rabbit, much less two decent-sized men. My heart was pumping double-quick when we threw ourselves headlong in the welcome sage-brush—they had done their level best to stop us, and some of those forty-four caliber humming-birds buzzed their leaden monotone perilously close to our heads. That is one kind of music for which I have a profound respect.
From there to the creek-channel we crawled on all fours, as MacRae had done. Stooping, lest our heads furnish a target, we splashed along in the shallow water till we reached the mouth of the canyon. There we slipped carefully to higher ground. MacRae was scrambling and sliding down from above, barely distinguishable against the bank. Far up the gorge dense clouds of black smoke swooped down from the benchland. Already the patch of brush in which lay the renegade Policemen was hidden in the smudge, shut away from our sight. We hailed MacRae when he reached the foot of the hill, and he came crashing through sage and buck-brush and threw himself, panting, on the ground.
"The fire," he gasped, "is coming down the gorge. They're cut off at the other end. They've got to come out here in a little while—or roast. The smoke would choke a salamander, on top, right now. We can't miss them in this narrow place, no matter how thick it gets. Look yonder!"
A wavering red line licked its way to the canyon-edge on the east side, wiped out the grass, and died on the bald rim-rock. Away up the creek a faint crackling sounded.
"Dry timber," Piegan muttered. "It'll get warm 'round here pretty directly."
The smoke, blacker now, more dense, hot as a whiff from a baker's oven, swooped down upon us in choking eddies. It blew out of the canyon-mouth like a gust from a chimney, rolling over and over in billowy masses. The banks on either hand were almost invisible. We knew that our time of waiting was short. The popping of dry, scrubby timber warned us that our position would soon be untenable. The infernal vapors from the unholy mixture of green and dry grass, berry bushes, willow scrub, and the ubiquitous sage, made breathing a misery and brought unwilling tears to our stinging eyes. And presently, above the subdued but menacing noises of the fire, the beat of galloping hoofs uprose.
They burst out of the mouth of the canyon, a smoke-wreathed whirlwind, heading for the protection of the river. The pack-horses, necked together, galloped in the lead, and behind them Hicks, Gregory, and Bevans leaned over the necks of their mounts. They knew that we were waiting for them, but at the worst they had a fighting chance with us, and none with what came behind. So thick hung the smoky veil that they were right on top of us before they took tangible shape; and when we rose to our knees and fired, the crack of their guns mingled with that of our own. Gregory, so near that I could see every feature of his dark face, the glittering black eyes, the wide mouth parted over white, even teeth, wilted in his saddle as they swept by. Bevans and his horse went down together. But Hicks the wily, a superb horseman, hung in his off stirrup and swerved away from us, and the smoke closed behind him to the tune of our guns.