As the reader knows, the mounted men of Hale’s command did not leave their captain until it was ascertained that something was the matter with the machines, therefore Pomp and his pursuers had a big start and a clear course.
With the most practiced ease the little darkey stood on his head in the saddle, and kicked up his legs.
“Come on,” he yelled. “Don’t yer go for to be getting bashful, kase I’se out for fun, I is, and I likes company. Come right ’long dar, and don’t be hanging back. What fo’ you think dis nigga want to go trablin’ lone for, hey?”
A chorus of shouts, shots, shrieks, yells and curses rang out.
Several bullets whistled around the little darkey, but none hit either him or the horse.
His enemies were wild over his cool mode of treatment.
It was decidedly contemptuous, and they did not like it.
So they banged away at him, but it is not every marksman who can hit even a very large sized mark when he has to fire from the back of a bounding steed, and Pomp knew that as long as they aimed at him he was pretty safe, whereas if they had only banged away in a promiscuous manner, he would have felt insecure.
He knew that they were not likely to hit what they aimed at.
He stood their firing for a few minutes, and then he stood up in his saddle and took a view of them.