"Wh-what shall we do?"
"Run," she quoted him, laughing, and seizing his hand suited the action to the word. She seemed perfectly unafraid. "They won't get our range in the dark. Isn't this exciting?"
But the bullets followed them, too close for comfort.
"It's the lantern!" exclaimed Channing, and was about to drop it when the girl seized it out of his hand.
"Here—don't do that! We'd be wandering about in this ravine all night without it."
She looked at her companion in sheer surprise. It was her first experience of the type of man who loses his head in the presence of danger. Her voice became all at once quite motherly and kind.
"It's all right. You go ahead and I'll carry the lantern. They're probably too drunk to follow us," she reassured him.
Channing, to the after mortification of his entire life, obeyed without demur.
"It's all right," she repeated. "But go as fast as you can."
Shots were flying thick and fast about the lantern she held at arm's length. More than one grazed her closely.