“Well, he’s nervy for a piano player, ain’t he?” murmured Scott, as he and Hard turned the corner of the house.
“I think, myself, that there’s a lot of rot talked about the artistic temperament,” replied Hard, drily. “The war showed us that poets could fight as courageously as plumbers, and I’ve always thought that when you got the real unadulterated article in artistic temperament, you usually got with it a distinctly cruel streak. I believe that you and I hated killing those Indians a lot more than Herrick did, though he’ll probably throw a nervous chill over it after a while and compose a piece about it.”
“Well, maybe so,” assented Scott. “He’s the only artistic chap I ever got real close to and I don’t mind admitting he’s mighty queer—but he ain’t yellow. I’ll say that for him after to-night.”
They were passing a clump of bushes as he spoke and two dark figures started forth. Scott instinctively put his hand on his gun.
“Oh,” gasped the shorter figure, “what has happened? Are you shot? Who is running away—you or they?” She seized Scott’s wrists with a clutching hold.
Scott laughed. “That’s how you obey orders, is it? Where are the horses?”
“I don’t know. We stayed right here,” faltered Polly. “I want to know if you’re hurt!”
“No, not if I know it, and I usually recognize bullets when they hit me.”
“What happened?” insisted the other woman. “Have they gone?”
“They’re fighting somebody over in the hills—we don’t know who it is,” replied Hard. “Probably Angel Gonzales. These fellows were evidently an advance guard.”