Once more the three shining tubes were levelled, promising certain death to the first who should approach within range.
Chapter Thirty Four.
Rube’s charger.
Our attitude of defence, thus suddenly assumed, produced a quick effect upon our pursuers, who pulled up simultaneously on the prairie. Some who had been foremost, and who fancied they had ridden too near, wheeled round and galloped back.
“Wagh!” ejaculated Rube; “jest look at ’em! they’ve tuk care to put plenty o’ paraira atween our guns an thur cowardly karkidges. Wagh!”
We at once perceived the advantage of our new position. We could all three show front wherever the enemy threatened. There was no longer any danger of their practising the surround. The half-circle behind us was covered by the mesa, and that could not be scaled. We had only to guard the semicircle in front—in fact, less than a semicircle, for we now perceived that the place was embayed, a sort of re-entering angle formed by two oblique faces of the cliff. The walls that flanked it extended three hundred yards on either side, so that no cover commanded our position. For defence, we could not have chosen a better situation; gallop round as they might, the guerrilleros would always find us with our teeth towards them! We saw our advantage at a glance.
Neither were our enemies slow to perceive it, and their exulting shouts changed to exclamations that betokened their disappointment.
Almost as suddenly, their tone again changed, and cries of triumph were once more heard along their line.