After the last had passed and vanished, Micky kicked Jimmie’s leg, and Jimmie drew back to face him behind the boulders. Micky’s blue eye fairly sparkled; even his freckles glowed, he was so excited. He certainly loved danger. He was not American enough to say “Hurrah!” but he looked it!
“The Tonto are ready,” he whispered. “We’ll see the fight. Good! Quick! The soldiers are coming.”
He crawled around the boulders, craned and peered, crept swiftly, with Jimmie in his tracks, to a better place, and wormed his way until they both might lie in a warm niche half filled with washed-in soil and screened with brush. From here they could see much better into the timber beyond the cross trail of the Tontos.
Jimmie felt a wild desire to warn the soldiers of the ambush by the Tontos; but the Tontos were cutting him off and he had no time for making a circuit. No, none at all. The soldiers were in sight—the head of their column had appeared, riding on, up an aisle through the towering pines, a short way back from the edge of the basin.
The first, by themselves, were five, riding leisurely almost knee to knee, and apparently enjoying the scenery. Their voices might be heard, as they chatted. One, a small, sun-dried man, wore an old slouch hat and grayish flannel shirt and dark trousers and cowhide boots. He was Tom Moore, a government packer. Jimmie knew him—had seen him at Camp Grant and in Tucson. Hah! And three were officers, in cavalry fatigue—there was Lieutenant John Bourke, of Camp Grant! Yes, sir! And Lieutenant William Ross! And another. But the man in the middle, on a mule, Jimmie did not know at all.
If he was riding there he ought to be an officer, but he seemed to be wearing a brown canvas suit, a sort of brown canvas round-brimmed hat, and carried a shot-gun across the pommel of his saddle, the muzzle of course pointing ahead. Perhaps he was some sportsman from the East, on a hunting trip, with the cavalry.
Micky lay perfectly still, intent to see with his one eye what would happen, but Jimmie trembled. His soldier friends were riding into an ambush and evidently had no suspicion of danger. Neither did their horses. The timber, with the sunshine streaming through the long aisles, stretched fragrant and peaceful. The air was so quiet that the riders’ voices, the occasional blowing of the horses, the scuff of hoofs and the creak of saddles, could be heard plainly.
The cavalry column itself was to be seen, behind, a short distance, winding on among the trees, and the tinkle of the pack bells sounded, again. Jimmie caught his breath. Micky was tense, beside him. The advance squad apparently had reached the Tontos—were within short bow-shot, anyway. Why didn’t——? Ah, look out!
“Twang! Whiz!” “Twang-twang! Whiz-whiz!” “Twang-twang-twang!” And “Whiz! Thud! Thud-thud!” The Tontos were whooping and screeching and shooting; their daubed faces and flying hair and naked bodies could be glimpsed gyrating among the trees; their arrows whizzed and glanced and hummed and thudded, to the twanging of the bows. They were mainly behind the advance squad, trying to stampede the cavalry column. Up half-rose Jimmie, up half-rose Micky, the better to see. [Had the first volley killed anybody? Didn’t look so], for not one of the squad was in sight; the animals were rearing and snorting, but every rider had instantly plunged from the saddle and dived for a tree, gun in one hand and reins in the other.