Wiley brought a supply of provisions from the valley, and the defenders satiated their hunger while ensconced behind the bowlders.
“This is even better than salt horse,” declared Wiley, munching away. “One time when shipwrecked in the South Atlantic, longitude unty-three, latitude oxty-one, I subsisted on raw salt horse for nineteen consecutive days. That was one of the most harrowing experiences of my long and sinuous career.”
“Spare us! Spare us!” exclaimed Frank. “We have got to stand off those ruffians, so don’t deprive us of our nerve and strength.”
“Look here!” exclaimed the sailor, “this thing is getting somewhat monotonous! Whenever I attempt to tell a little nannygoat somebody rises up and yells, ‘Stop it!’ Pretty soon I will get so I’ll have to talk to myself. There was a man I knew once who kept a bowling alley and the doctor told him he mustn’t talk; but he kept right on talking. He talked everybody deaf, and dumb, and black, and blue, and stone-blind, so at last there was nobody left for him to talk to but himself. Then he went to talking to himself in his sleep, which disturbed him so that he always woke up and couldn’t sleep. The result was that he became so utterly exhausted for the want of rest that it was necessary to take him to the hospital. But even in the hospital they couldn’t keep him still until they gagged him. That was the only thing that saved his life. What a sad thing it would be if anything like that should happen to me!”
Late in the afternoon the enemy made a move. Protected by rocks and such cover as they could find, they attempted to close in on the defenders of the valley.
Frank was keenly alert, and he discovered this move almost as soon as it began. Immediately he posted his companions where they could watch, and they agreed on a dead line, across which they would not permit the ruffians to creep without firing on them. As the ruffians drew nearer the cover was less available, and when the dead line was crossed the defenders opened fire on them. Within three minutes several of the enemy had been wounded, and the advance was not only checked, but the ruffians were filled with such dismay that the greater part of them took to their heels and fled. Several of these might have been shot down, but Frank would not permit it.
“I opine that just about gives them all they want for a while,” said Brad Buckhart.
It seemed that he was right. The besiegers disappeared amid the rocks, and the afternoon crept on with no further effort in that direction to enter the valley by assault.
Some of the defenders were beginning to wonder if the enemy had not given up when, with the sun hanging low, a man appeared in the distance, waving a white handkerchief, attached like a flag to the end of a stick.
“Whatever’s up now?” muttered Pete Curry.