The young woman had seen and understood. She looked confidently into the eyes of her husband. She had no fear, but the look she saw in his eyes sent a little quaver to her heart.
“Let us get away as quickly as possible,” he said. “Perhaps they have not seen us.”
He knew better, and as he lifted her to the saddle she felt his hand tremble.
For a half mile over the broken surface their progress was necessarily slow—and how rapidly those red devils lessened the intervening space!
The lieutenant pointed to a distant bluff and told his companion to keep her eyes fixed on that and “ride—ride! ride, as you never rode before!”
Swinging in behind her, Avery unslung his carbine and looked to the magazine. It was full.
“Eight Indians!” he whispered to himself, “and there are twenty-two.”
He looked to his revolver—“five more; still there are nine!”
He felt for his knife—“could he last till nine were down, if—if he held her image in his mind?”
Somehow he felt that even death could not conquer if her life and honor were at stake.