He had fired at a flash about a hundred yards away, and his own fire drew shots from different points. Phil heard bullets whistling over his head, but, as they were hugging the earth very closely, he did not feel any great alarm over such blind shooting.
The firing increased a little presently, and now its effect upon the boy was wholly spectacular. He watched for the points of flame as one would for fireworks. Sometimes the flashes looked blue, sometimes yellow, and sometimes red. At other times they showed variations and new combinations of all three colors.
"Since one has to watch, it's rather pretty, and it breaks the monotony," said Bill Breakstone. "Now, I think our little display of fireworks is ceasing."
Bill was a good prophet, because the firing quickly sank to a few scattered shots, and then to nothing. After that, they lay in the darkness and silence for a long time. Phil was wet and cold, and he longed for a warm blanket and the shelter of a wagon, but he was not one to flinch. As long as those two skilled plainsmen, Breakstone and Arenberg, thought it necessary to remain, he would remain without a complaint. He also expected that some other hostile movement would be made.
At some late hour of the night the boy heard the rapid beat of many hoofs, and then a mass of horsemen showed dimly in the dusk, dark squadrons galloping down upon the train. But the riflemen were ready. The train became at once a living circle of fire. A storm of bullets beat upon the charging horsemen, and fifty yards from the barrier they halted. There they wavered a few moments, while wounded horses screamed with pain, then turned and galloped back as fast as they had come.
"That's the fall of the curtain on the last act," said Bill Breakstone. "They thought to catch us napping, to stampede our horses, or to do something else unpleasant to us that depended on surprise."
Nevertheless, they watched all the remainder of the night, and Phil was devoutly glad when he saw the first touch of rose in the east, the herald of the new day. Before them the plain lay clear, except a fallen horse near by, and there was no sign of the enemy.
"They have had enough," said Bill Breakstone. "The darkness offered them their only chance, and now the sunrise has put them to flight.
"Night,
Fight.
Sun,
Done.
"That's a short poem, Phil, one of the shortest that I've ever composed, but it's highly descriptive, and it's true."