"Bob Moore?"
Silence greeted this name also.
A moment later the bandits stood.
The calling of the roll in the sombre setting of the overhanging branches of the evergreen trees, through which, here and there, the moonlight filtered, amid the crash of the carbines and the whistle of the bullets, as they searched out the possible hiding place of the little band of fugitives, was dramatic in the extreme.
And the outlaws, rough and desperate men as they were, were cowed as they realized that the same death they had visited upon so many helpless mortals, had thinned their own ranks.
And the shock was all the greater for the reason that they had practised their nefarious pastime with such seeming immunity that they had come to look upon themselves as bearing charmed lives.
Not long, however, were they left to their thoughts.
Of a sudden, above the cheering of the troopers, above the rattle of the musketry, above the shrilling of the bullets rang the wild, blood-curdling war whoops of infuriated redskins.
"Quick, on your bellies under the trees!" whispered Jesse. "We'll let the devils charge the soldiers and may they battle till every one, Injun and trooper, falls dead!"
But just as the bandits were obeying their leader, there sounded from close beside them a plaintive: