Skilled horsemen all, they had accomplished the turn which was so sudden that it would have unseated less expert riders.
But so absorbed were they in watching the troopers that they had not noticed five bucks who had broken away from their fellows and were bearing down upon them with the speed of whirlwinds.
Riding with marvelous ease and grace, the redmen closed upon them with incredible rapidity.
No whoop or yell did they utter.
Their success in getting near enough to the men who had killed their brother warriors and outraged their race by shooting their medicine woman lay in their silence.
Breathlessly the rest of the braves watched them.
As the echoes of the outlaws' derisive shouts, when they dashed past the head of the cavalry, died away, one of the bucks straightened and raised his arm.
Bang! went the pistol in his hand.
The report of the gun was the first intimation Jesse and his pals had of the proximity of the braves.
And as the bullet whistled over their heads, they whirled on the backs of their ponies to see who it was that had been able to get within shooting distance of them, undiscovered.