“Do they mean to kill him?” McArthur asked in a shocked voice.
“Sure they mean to kill him. Do you think that’s target practice? But look where the dust flies up—they’re striking all around him—behind him—beside him—everywhere but in him! They’re so anxious that they’re shootin’ wild. Runnin’ Rabbit ought to get him—he’s a good shot! He did! No, he stumbled. He’s charmed—that Smith. He’s got a strong medicine.”
“He’s not too brave to run,” said McArthur, but added: “I ran, myself, when they were after me.”
“He’d better run,” Susie replied. “But he’s after his gun; he means to fight.”
“He’ll make it!” McArthur cried.
Susie’s voice suddenly rang out in an ascending, staccato-like shriek.
“Oh! Oh! Oh! Mother, go back!” but the cracking rifles drowned Susie’s shrill cry of entreaty.
The Indian woman, with her hands high above her head, the palms open as if to stop the singing bullets, rushed from the house and stopped only when she had passed Smith and stood between him and danger. She stood erect, unflinching, and while the Indians’ fire wavered Smith gained the doorway.
Gasping for breath, his short upper lip drawn back from his protruding teeth in the snarl of a ferocious animal, he snatched a rifle from the deer-horn gun-rack above the door.
The Indian woman was directly in line between him and his enemies.