Bang! bang! rang out almost simultaneously the reports of two rifles. The smoke floated upward. Pike and Jim had the good sense not to attempt to lift their heads or peer over the barriers, but to content themselves with looking through the loopholes. One look revealed the scene. "The little, skinny cuss," as Pike had called him, clasping his hands to his breast, had fallen head foremost among the rocks up which he was climbing. But the tall Indian, giving a spring like that of a cat, had leaped behind a bowlder full ten feet away from him, and the next instant,—bang! went his rifle, and a bullet whizzed overhead and struck, flattening itself upon the rocks.
"Oh, you've missed him, Jim," said Pike, reproachfully. "Now, look out for the others!"
The rest of the Apaches, hearing the shots, with the quickness of thought, had sprung for shelter behind the neighboring trees or rocks. Not one of their number, by this time, failed to know just where these shots had come from; and in a minute more, from all over the hillside below, thick and fast, the reports of the rifles were ringing on the morning air and the bullets came singing about the stone parapet, some of them chipping off little fragments from the top of the parapet itself, but most of them striking the great mass of rocks overhead and doing no harm whatever, except to spatter little fragments of lead upon the parapet and its gallant defenders.
"Watch for them! Keep your eyes peeled, Jim! Every time you see a head or an arm or a body coming from behind a rock or tree, let drive at it! It will give the idea that there are more of us up here than we really have, and we've got all the ammunition we can possibly use. Don't be afraid! I'll tell you when to save your cartridges. There's one now! Watch him!" Bang! went Pike's rifle. It was a good shot; for they could see that the bullet barked the tree just where the Apache was standing; but apparently it did no harm to the Indian himself; for the answering shot of his rifle was prompt, and the bullet whizzed dangerously near.
"That fellow's a cool hand!" said Pike. "Watch him, Jim, you're a little further that way. He'll be out again in a minute. What's the reason your man hasn't fired?—the man behind the rock that I told you to kill?"
"Because I'm certain that I hit him," said Jim, "and I reckon by this time he isn't doing any more shooting."
"Watch carefully, anyhow," was the reply. "They'll soon try, when they find there are very few of us, to crawl up the hill upon us. Then's the time you've got to note every movement! See! there comes one fellow behind that rock now. He's crawling on all fours. Thinks we can't see him. Now just hold on until he comes around that little ledge!—I'll take him! I've got him! Now!"
And again Pike's rifle rang out, and to his intense delight the Indian sprang to his feet—staggered an instant—and then fell all in a heap, huddled up around the roots of the tree which he was just striving to reach. Some one down among the Indians gave a yell of dismay. Evidently the one who was shot was a man of some prominence among them—possibly a chief.