“There comes the moon,” said the man who had been at the spring. “They must be near now.”
Far in the east the moon was stealing above the horizon. Under its light the mesa took form out of the darkness––the level sagebrush plain criss-crossed by willow-lined ditches and checkered by small Mexican fields, the winding shimmering Burntwood River with its border of cottonwoods, the narrow road, the distant town of San Mateo, a vague blot of shadow picked out by tiny specks of light.
The mountains too now reared in view, silent, silvered, majestic, towering about the camp on the lower base. One could see, as the moon swam higher, the low long buildings of the camp clustered on the hillside above the canyon, in the bottom of which was the dashing stream and the bone-white core of the dam.
“Look down yonder on the other side!” Martinez exclaimed suddenly, pointing a long thin forefinger at the mouth of the canyon where a group of black dots were moving up the river.
“That’s them,” said the man who had given the warning.
“And they’re armed,” said another. “You can see the moon shine on their gun-barrels.”
On the opposite side of the stream, some two hundred yards below the dam and three or four hundred feet lower in elevation than the camp, advancing up the canyon in a string, the men looked like a line of insects.
“I’m off for help,” the doctor said, springing into his car. “Janet, you and Mary go higher up among the rocks and hide if these buildings are attacked.” Away 252 he went, buzzing down the hillside to the long stretch of road.
Weir now came into sight, walking quickly towards the group. That he saw the Mexicans down in the canyon was evident from his swift appraising glances thither.
“Johnson, move your men down halfway to the dam and have them scatter there behind bowlders. I shall go still lower down,” he said. “You will hold your fire until I signal with my hat from the dam.”