The redskin grunted assent. “Tieum to saddle,” he said.
“I’ll go and show him where the rascal is,” volunteered Wilson.
A few minutes later, with the boys’ prisoner trailing behind, securely bound to the saddle of the wandering horse he had picked up, the Indian was off across the plain to the west at the top of his mottled pony’s speed.
When Wilson returned to Alex and Jack he found them busy constructing a miniature block-house of ties they had thrown from a neighboring car. “That’s the idea,” he said, joining them. “We could hold out in that all night, easily.”
“No; leave that opening, Wilse,” Jack interposed as Wilson began closing a gap at one of the corners. “That’s to command the bridge. We’re going to fire through, not over.”
The boys had just completed their little fort when from the top of the gully immediately opposite came a spit of flame, followed by the plaintive hum of a pistol bullet above them. Promptly they dropped below the ties, and Alex, who had that side, aimed toward the spot at which he had seen the flash, and as it spat out again, crashed back with his Winchester. From several points along the opposite level a ragged fire followed, and continued intermittently.
Then finally, as the boys had half expected, there came a smattering volley from amid the cars on the sidings behind them. The body of their assailants had reached the surface on their side.
Now it was that the three began to experience their first real anxiety. For despite their show of confidence to one another, each secretly knew that if a determined rush was made from near at hand, there was scarcely an even chance of their standing it off.
As a provision against this eventuality Wilson did very little firing during the almost steady exchange of shots that followed, keeping the chambers of his two revolvers always full. To the same end, Alex and Jack used their magazine-rifles as single-shots, holding the magazines, fully charged, in reserve.
“I think I’m getting one of them now and then,” Alex was saying about half an hour after the disappearance of the Indian. “Or else—” He broke off to fire again. “Unless their ammunition is giving out over there.”