All being prepared, Mr. Hardy took the signal rocket, and placing it at a much higher angle than that intended for the others, struck a match and applied it to the touch-paper. In a moment afterwards there was a loud roar, and the rocket soared up, with its train of brilliant sparks behind it, and burst almost over the Indian camp. Five or six balls of an intense white light broke from it, and gradually fell towards the ground, lighting up the whole surrounding plain.
A yell of astonishment and fear broke from the Indians, and in a moment another rocket rushed out.
Mr. Hardy watched its fiery way with anxiety, and saw with delight that its direction was true. Describing a slight curve, it rushed full at the black mass, struck something, turned abruptly, and then exploded with a loud report, followed instantly by a cracking noise, like a straggling fusilade of musketry.
It had scarcely ceased before the third followed it, greeted, like its predecessors, with a yell from the Indians.
Its success was equal to that of its predecessors, and Mr. Hardy was delighted by the sound of a dull, heavy noise, like distant thunder, and knew that the success was complete, and that he had stampeded the cattle.
He now ran to his horse, which was trembling in every limb and struggling wildly to escape, soothed it by patting it, loosed its bonds, sprang into the saddle, and went off at full gallop in the direction by which he had come. He had not ridden very far before he heard, in the still night air, the repeated sound of firearms, and knew that the boys were upon the trail of the cattle. Mr. Hardy had little fear of the Indians pursuing them; he felt sure that the slaughter of the day by the new and mysterious firearms, together with the effect of the rockets, would have too much terrified and cowed them for them to think of anything but flight. He was, however, much alarmed when, after a quarter of an hour’s riding, he heard a single sharp whistle at about a few hundred yards’ distance.
‘Hurrah! papa,’ the boys said as he rode up to them. ‘They have gone by at a tremendous rush—sheep and cattle and all. We started the moment we saw your first rocket, and got up just as they rushed past, and we joined in behind and fired, and yelled till we were hoarse. I don’t think they will stop again to-night.’
‘Did you see or hear anything of the Indians, boys?’
‘Nothing, papa. When the first rocket burst, we saw several dark figures leap up from the grass—where they had been, no doubt, scouting—and run towards the camp; but that was all. What are we to do now?’
‘Ride on straight for home. We need not trouble about the animals; they won’t stop till they are back. We must go easily, for our horses have done a very long day’s work already. They have been between fifty and sixty miles. I think that we had better ride on for another hour. By that time the moon will be up, and we shall be able to see for miles across the plain. Then we will halt till daybreak,—it will only be three hours,—and the horses will be able to carry us in at a canter afterwards.’