The result was disappointing. The side of the rock was bare. The buck had discovered his peril and withdrawn. Where was he?
The lieutenant glanced behind him with a nervous start, half expecting to see the miscreant in the act of firing, but for the moment he was invisible, though somewhere close at hand.
Since the Apache was too cautious to be caught off his guard by this system of maneuvering, Lieutenant Decker asked himself what other method could be adopted. There must be a change in the order of proceedings, or he himself would be discomfited.
“I’ll do it!” he muttered, compressing his lips.
No part of the rock was more than five feet in height, so that if a man stood upright beside it, his hat would show from any point. The stone was so rough that it was as easy to climb as a flight of stairs. The lieutenant’s decision was to adopt the system of attack which he had held in so much dread from the first.
Sensible of the necessity of instant action and the great peril attending the recourse, he kept his revolver in his right hand, as he grasped the upper edge of the boulder, placed one foot upon an obstruction, and silently raised his head above the crest of the rock, intending to draw himself upon it.
His head and shoulders had just moved upward, when with a grasp he let go and dropped out of sight.
“Well, I’ll be hanged!” he exclaimed, “was there ever anything like it?”
Never did two enemies seem to follow so closely the same line of thought. It looked as if the Apache and the white man’s brains were working in unison. Thus it came about that at the very moment Lieutenant Decker raised himself over one side of the rock to the top, the Apache did the same thing at a point opposite. Both were climbing to the coign of advantage at the same moment. Either could have let fly with his pistol (for the Apache had one), but instead of doing so he made all haste to drop down, so as to interpose the boulder as an armor in front. Thus was another remarkable example given of a unity of thought.