"All right, Billie," he said. "I'll go. You stay right where you are as if you're talking to me."
She heard him cross the floor. He dropped from the window on the far side from the men. When he came in sight of them he was running in long leaps for the brush, zigzagging in his flight. Their gaze had been riveted on the girl and he gained a flying start of thirty yards before a shot was fired. Then half a dozen rifles spurted from two hundred yards up the slope, the balls passing him with nasty snaps. He reached the edge of the sage and plunged headlong between two rocks. Bullets reached for him, ripping through the tips of the sage above him, tossing up spurts of gravel on all sides and singing in ricochets from the rocks.
One raider, in his eagerness to secure a better view, incautiously exposed his head. He went down with a hole through his mask as a shot sounded from the main house. From the window, his big face red and dripping from the heat, Waddles pumped a rifle and covered Harris's flight as best he could, drilling the center of every sage that shook or quivered back of the house.
Two men turned their attention to the one who handicapped their chances of locating the crawling man and poured their fire through the window. A soft-nose splintered the butt of the cook's rifle and tore a strip of meat from his arm as another fanned his cheek. He dropped to the floor and peered from a crack. The firing had suddenly ceased. He saw a hat moving up a coulee, a mere flash here and there above the sage as the owner of it ran. As he watched for the man to reappear, the roof of the whole string of buildings to the east caved with a hissing roar and belched sparks and debris high in the air.
The fire was filtering through the cracks and circling its hungry tongues inside. The smoke hurt his eyes and the heat seemed to crack his skin. He crossed over to see if Harris was down; that would account for the sudden cessation of shooting from the hills back of the house.
The raiders in the lower field were riding swiftly for the far side of the valley. One man knelt near the head gate, then mounted and jumped his horse off after the rest. Waddles put the whole force of his lungs behind one mighty cheer.
Fifty yards back in the brush Harris cautiously raised his head to determine the cause of this triumphant peal.
Far down along the rim of the valley, outlined against the sky, four mules were running as so many startled deer under the bite of the lash and six men swayed and clung in the wagon that lurched behind. High above the crackle of the flames sounded Tiny's yelps, keen and clear, as he urged on the flying mules. Three men unloaded from the wagon as it came opposite the cluster of men riding far out across the flats. They opened a long-range fire at a thousand yards while the others stayed with the wagon as it rocked on toward the burning ranch.
Billie was running to the brush at the spot where Harris had disappeared. He rose to meet her.
"Cal, you're not hurt?" she asked.