"I can! Keep them down, and I'll crawl! They won't see me!"
There was wisdom here, and I yielded. Nimbly she climbed the wall, dropped to her hands and knees, and crawled to the prairie. In another minute a string of smoke appeared; then with a bunch of grass alight she flew from place to place, stooping as she ran, and leaving in her wake a trail of fire. Almost as quickly she was back at my side, breathing fast.
"You glorious genius, we'll win out yet," I yelled.
The grass was dry and tall and thick, and the wind was blowing smartly. Fire asks for no better playground, and with incredible swiftness a wall of flame sprang up, crackling and roaring as it spread out fan-wise.
She knew, as did I, that the men would back-fire. But while this would save them from the flames it would at the same time remove their cover, and my rifle could then have a whole man to bite at instead of merely his head and shoulders, or less. They would have no alternative now but to come forward quickly or retreat. I think Doloria realized that anything might be about to happen, for she laid the other rifle in position on the parapet, rather casually asking:
"Will it matter if I stand on the canteens? They raise me just high enough!"
Why should she not be given a chance to fight for her life—at least, until they located our point of concealment and began to concentrate their fire on it. That this would inevitably happen might be a matter of minutes, but until then I thought she had every right to stay. There's no denying, too, that I knew her value.
What was going on behind the wall of racing flame we could not tell. But now it rose majestically, leapt skyward and sank to insignificance. The back-fire had met our own; they had gripped, flared up, and died. Likewise were our forces about to clash, and perhaps burn out with the heat of human passion.
Staring through the smoke we counted seven men running to the rear. They well enough knew the danger of being without cover, and were intending first to get beyond our range and then bring the fight back by some other means. Shooting fast I heard Doloria give several quick gasps of excitement as I knocked up the ash dust close to them, and although, their number was not reduced we gained a feeling of greater security to find the fort more impregnable than I had prophesied.
But our budding hope lasted about as long as it took us to conceive it. One of the fellows suddenly changed his direction, waving as he ran, and the others dashed after him. Then we, too, saw the discovery he had made, and it filled me with a sense of desperation.