The Texan was exasperated, for he was eager to bring down this scamp, and, up to the moment of his disappearance, was confident of doing so, but the opportunity was gone.
Instead of retreating to cover again, he decided to remain on the roof a brief while longer; but he stealthily shifted his position a little nearer the edge of the building. Now 124 that he was at liberty for the moment, he laid aside his gun and drew his revolver. That was the weapon for such an emergency, and he kept it in position for instant use, without the fatal preliminaries that had just defeated his purpose.
The captain clung to the belief that, despite the second repulse of the Comanches, they would persist in their attempt until it should prove too costly to them.
But he was not shortsighted enough to believe the repetition would be in the precise fashion of the last: that is to say, he did not suspect the Indian, after ducking so promptly out of range, would pop up his head again to invite a shot.
“He will appear at some other corner,” was his conclusion, “which they believe is unguarded.”
His eyes had become so accustomed to the gloom that he could trace the outlines of the eaves around the cabin, and he felt little fear, therefore, of his enemies stealing upon him unawares. They might try it, but he was confident of defeating their purpose at the very onset.
Another fear troubled him: having learned that he was on the roof, they were likely to begin firing at it from a distance, raking the entire surface so effectively that some of the bullets were quite sure to find him. Prudence whispered to him to withdraw into the interior of the cabin while the chance was his, but there was a stubborn streak in the Texan’s composition which caused him to hold his place. He had been under fire so often that it seemed as if nothing could disturb his coolness or ruffle his presence of mind, and he was so inured to personal peril that he felt something of the old thrill of which he had spoken earlier in the evening, when recalling his experience in the war that had closed only a few years before.
But none of the expected shots came. He heard the sound of more than one mustang’s hoofs, and several signals between the warriors, but no one sent a bullet skimming along the slope on which he lay looking and listening, and on the alert for the first appearance of his assailants.
This led him to suspect that, after all, they 126 were not certain of his presence. It was sound and not sight that had caused the sudden withdrawal of the warrior.