He dashed through a door to grab his weapons and flee, and in through the open, undefended portal from the square leaped a blood-covered Delaware, an epic of rags and rage, a man so maddened that all thought of weapons save Nature's, had gone from his burning brain. Behind him leaped a Blackfoot, dynamic and deadly as a panther, a Colt pistol in one eager, upraised hand, in the other the cold length of a keen skinning knife. Behind them from a wagon deserted in the square came the sharp crashes of Hawken and Colt, and a shouted battlecry: "Remember th' Alamo! Remember th' Alamo! Texans to th' fore!"
As the Delaware dashed past an open door he caught a flurry of movement, the flare of a pistol and his laughter pealed out in one mad shout as he stopped like a cat and leaped in through the opening. Another flash, another roar, and a burning welt across a shoulder spurred the bloody Nemesis to a greater speed. The wavering sword he knocked aside and near two hundred pounds of fighting, mountain sinew hurled itself behind a driving fist. The hurtling bulk of Armijo crashed against a wall and dropped like a bag of grain as the plunging Delaware whirled to pounce upon it. As he turned, a scream rang out somewhere behind him, through the door he had just entered, a scream vibrant with desperate hope, and he bellowed a triumphant answer. Here was his mission; Armijo was a side issue. The governor, helpless before him, was forgotten and the Delaware whirled through the door bellowing one name over and over again. "Patience! Patience! Patience!"
"Los Tejanos! Los Tejanos!" came from the public square.
"Los Tejanos! Los Tejanos!" quavered the despairing echo throughout the quaking town, while from the south there came the steady crash of alien rifles, firing harmlessly into the air.
Before him a Blackfoot methodically battered at a door, taking a few quick steps backward and a plunging dive forward. The Delaware shouted again and added the power of his driving weight. There came a splintering crash and the door went in. The Blackfoot whirled and darted to the great portal leading to the square, bouncing on the balls of his feet like a cougar expecting danger at every point. The Delaware scrambled to his feet and gathered a whitefaced woman in his arms, crushing her to his bloody chest. He felt her go suddenly limp and, throwing her across a bare and bleeding shoulder, he drew a Colt repeating pistol and sprang after his Indian ally, not feeling the weight of his precious burden.
Lurid, stabbing rapiers of fire still sprang from the wagon barricade, making death certain to any man who opened the barracks' door. Between their heavy roars the woodwork of the wagon smacked sharply in time to bursts of fire from the barracks' few windows. The Delaware darted from the palacio door and held close to the wall, hidden by the portico and the darkness. As he reached the end of the column-supported roof the Blackfoot bulked out of the night on his horse, and leading four others. The lost-soul call of a loon sounded and changed the deadly wagon into a vehicle of peace and quiet as its Arapahoe defenders slipped away from it. The sudden creaking of saddle leather was followed by the rolling thunder of flying hoofs as the first three horses left the square. A moment's pause and then two more horses galloped through the darkness after the others, the Arapahoe rear guard sitting almost sidewise in their saddles, their long, hot rifles pointing backward to send hotter greetings to whoever might follow.
They raced like gambling fools through the dark night, the Blackfoot leading the way with the instinct of a homing bird. Mile after mile strung out behind them, pastures, gullies, knolls rolling past. While they climbed and dipped and circled they gradually sensed a steady rising of the ground. Suddenly the Blackfoot shouted for them to halt, and the laboring horses welcomed the moment's breathing space. The guide threw himself on the ground and pressed his ear against it. In a moment he was back in the saddle and gave the word to go on again. He had heard no sounds of pursuit and he chuckled as he leaned over close to the Delaware who rode at his flank.
"Nothin' stirrin' behind us, fur's I could make out," he said. "They can only track us by sound in th' dark, at any speed, an' I'm gamblin' they wait fer daylight. Thar scared ter stick thar noses out o' doors this night. How's yore gal?"
Tom's rumbling reply could mean anything and they kept on through the night without further words. The trail had been growing steadily rougher and steeper and the horses were permitted to fall into a swinging lope. Another hour passed and then Hank signalled for a stop. From his lips whistled the crowded, hurried, repeated call of a whip-poor-will. Three times the insistent demand rang out, clear and piercing. At the count of ten an echoing whistle sounded and a light flickered on the trail ahead.
"J'get her?" bawled a voice, tremulous with fear and anxiety, and only a breath ahead of another.