“White Man retreating along this road, Red Man following, Great Chief,” declared an elderly Seminole at Bill’s side.
“How do you know they are White Men, Straight Arrow?”
“Those nearest us wear white men’s boots, Great Chief. No Seminole makes noise like that when he runs.”
Bill could hear nothing except the firing, but it never occurred to him to doubt the keen-eared Indian’s word.
“Into the woods!” he commanded. “And don’t fire until you hear me whistle!”
The dark shadows of his savage allies seemed to melt into the forest. Bill slid behind the trunk of a palm, from where he had an unobstructed view of the turn in the road beyond. He could hear the sound of running footsteps now. The reports of rifles came nearer and nearer.
Finally a band of fifteen or twenty men appeared around the bend. In the darkness of the dense woods it was difficult to distinguish objects clearly, but Bill saw that four of the men bore a burden, and as they got well past the turn in the road, they stopped and lowered it to the ground. Immediately afterward the trip hammer detonations of a machine gun shattered the night.
There came a flash and a sharp report from the woods on the opposite side of the road. The machine-gunner fell sideways, clutching his shoulder. Another took the wounded man’s place. Before Bill could purse his lips to whistle, first one side of the road, then the other were raked with a hail of lead.
Bill could hear the bullets pinging into the soft palm that sheltered him. He dropped to the ground and lying flat, opened fire with his rifle, while the gangsters’ bullets went on singing above his head. Flashes lit the woods continuously in every direction now, and the night was made hideous by the bloodcurdling yells of the Seminoles.
Then another and heavier burst of firing came from the bend of the road. The machine gun was suddenly silenced. The few gangsters that were left turned and fled toward the bay.