But the latter, who was watching him, dodged the missile, which struck into the wall a few inches from his head.
Lanzi leaped over the bar, and rushed at Blue-fox.
The Indians rose tumultuously, and seizing their arms, bounded like wild beasts in pursuit of the half-breed.
The latter, on reaching the door of the corral, turned, fired his pistols among the crowd, leapt on his horse, and burying his spurs in its flanks, forced it to leap through the breach.
At the same moment a horrible noise was heard behind him, the earth trembled, and a confused mass of stones, beams, and fragments of every description fell around the rider and his horse, which was maddened with terror.
The Venta del Potrero was blown into the air, burying beneath its ruins the Apaches who had invaded it.
Such was the trick Lanzi had promised himself to play on the Indians.
We can now understand why he had insisted on Carmela setting off at full speed.
By a singular piece of good fortune, neither the half-breed nor his horse was wounded; the mustang, with foaming nostrils, flew over the prairie as if winged, incessantly urged on by its rider, who excited it with spur and force, for he fancied he could hear behind him the gallop of another horse in pursuit.
Unluckily the night was too dark for him to assure himself whether he were mistaken.