“Git down!” yelled Sam. “The varmits is goin’ to shoot!”
The “varmits” shot lower this time, but every member of the Overland party had taken to the shadows and thrown themselves down, as the rider who had roped Emma dashed out holding his wounded wrist, yelling to his companions to take it out of the man who had shot him.
By this time Tom and Hippy had gotten their rifles and were watching and waiting, fully expecting further and more serious trouble. It came in the shape of another charge of the night riders. This time their yells were savage. The new note in them told the Overlanders what was coming.
“Let ’em have it, fellers!” urged Jim.
“Girls, keep down!” called Grace Harlowe, as Emma Dean once more stood up. “Isn’t once enough for you?”
Emma permitted herself to sink to the ground, just in time to avoid a rattling fire of revolver shots from the raiders.
At this juncture, Jim and Sam let go with their heavy revolvers, followed a few seconds later by the crash of the two Overland rifles. That some of their bullets had taken effect the Overlanders knew by the angry yells of their attackers. A rider’s pony went down on its nose at the very edge of the camp and its rider plunged forward to the ground, whereupon the pony staggered to its feet and limped away, but the rider lay where he had fallen.
“Jim-Sam, don’t kill ’em!” begged Tom Gray. “Drive ’em off, that’s all.”
The fellow’s companions, leaning from saddles, dragged the wounded man away, whence he was flung on a mustang and carried off, but how badly the fellow was hurt the Overlanders had no means of knowing. They kept on shooting just the same, backed up now by the weapons of Jim-Sam, and it took but a few shots from the heavy weapons to drive the raiders away.
“Now, ye infernal idiot! Do ye reckon ye’ve done enough fer one night?” demanded Jim sarcastically.