All the air resounded with whoops and screeches, and bow twang, and now and then a gun-shot, coming from the cave. The Yavapais were inside. Several might be glimpsed, between the end of the rock wall and the mouth of the cave, darting about. They dragged a body or two back, out of sight. The Ross volley had killed some of them.
“Big fight!” panted Micky. “Good. We are in time.”
“Hey! What in thunder are you doin’ down hyar?” scolded Joe Felmer, from behind the next boulder—he and John Cahill together. “You want to lose yore scalps?”
Micky only grinned impudently, and with an Apache yell answered the Yavapais. The White Mountains were replying with taunt to taunt. Jimmie said not a word. He may have done wrong, but here he was.
“Wall, you stay mighty close,” ordered Joe. “This’ll be no picnic.”
“What have you done, Black Beard?” called Chief Big Mouth, who was near.
“The pony thieves were dancing their deeds in the mouth of the cave. Before they saw us we killed six of them.”
“Bueno,” grunted the fierce Big Mouth.
Lying low, Lieutenant Ross and Lieutenant Bourke and Nan-ta-je were consulting together. Presently orders were passed from man to man, on this side; and by ones and twos and threes the soldiers and scouts spread out, in the gray dawn, selecting other positions here, or bending, went scurrying across, against the shelter of the cave rampart, to reinforce the other flank, while the carbines of their fellows kept the Yavapais from shooting at them.