“Hello! is that you, Ned?” he asked joyfully, for he felt sure that the return of the scout master would mean a new rift in the clouds.
“Yes, tell the other boys to back in here after you!” the other scout went on to say.
“Yes, it’s here, but hurry and get started!” Ned continued, from the darker depths beyond.
Of course, when the others heard that there was an opportunity to creep out of the fire zone they lost no time in making a move. Jimmy was declaring at the same time that it certainly gave him a pain to be compelled to “take water” in that way, and without having inflicted any material damage that they knew of on the enemy.
“If we’d only knocked half a dozen of the skunks off their pins, it wouldn’t be so bad,” he lamented; “but I ain’t had any chance. It ain’t fair, that’s what; and me just crazy to try my Marlin on that lot of mutts. But wait, that’s all; my time’s agoin’ to come yet, and then, look out, that’s what!”
When they had backed some ten feet or more they came to the wall of the canyon. Ned was waiting to show them where he had found a fissure into which he must undoubtedly have crawled some little ways, seeking to find out what sort of a haven of refuge it would turn out to be.
“I struck a match,” he told his comrades, as they pushed into the split in the wall, “and as near as I could make out, there’s a little cave right here. We’ll take possession and hold the fort against a hundred enemies.”
“Hurrah! that’s right, we will!” shrilled the irrepressible Jimmy, always quick to seize upon any excuse for giving tongue.
Already they seemed to have passed beyond the reach of the flying bullets, although, of course, the ambitious rustlers did not know that and were still banging away right merrily.
“If only they’d keep that up until they’d fired away every scrap of their ammunition, wouldn’t it be just fine,” Harry suggested, “then we could go out and do a little holding-up on our own hook.”