“How many?”
“Four, including the cook.”
“Four, and sixteen of mine—twenty. Our two selves—twenty-two. Good; come on.”
The man led the way to the bluff. The cowboys were all there. They received instructions to hold the position at the corrals; to defend them, or to act as reinforcements if the struggle should take place elsewhere. Then the two leaders passed on down into the valley. It was an awkward descent, steep, and of a loose surface that shelved under their horses’ feet. For the moment a cloud had obscured the moon, and Fyles looked up. A southwesterly breeze had sprung up, and there was a watery look about the sky.
“Good,” he said again, in his abrupt manner. “There won’t be too much moon. Moonlight is not altogether an advantage in a matter of this sort. We must depend chiefly on a surprise. We don’t want too many empty saddles.”
At the bottom of the valley they found the rest of the men gathered together in the shelter of the scattered undergrowth. It was Fyles’s whole command. He proceeded at once to divide them up into two parties. One he stationed east of the ranch, split into a sort of skirmishing order, to act under Tresler’s charge. The other party he took for his own command, selecting an advantageous position to the west. He had also established a code of signals to be used on the approach of the enemy; these took the form of the cry of the screech-owl. Thus, within a quarter of an hour after their arrival, all was in readiness for the raiders, and the valley once more returned to its native quiet.
And how quiet and still it all was! The time crept on toward the appointed hour. The moon was still high in the heavens, but its light had grown more and more uncertain. The clouds had become dense to a stormy extent. Now and then the rippling waters of the brook caught and reflected for a moment a passing shaft of light, like a silvery rift in the midst of the valley, but otherwise all was shadow. And in the occasional moonlight every tree and bush and boulder was magnified into some weird, spectral shape, distorting it from plain truth into some grotesque fiction, turning the humblest growth into anything from a grazing steer to a moving vehicle; from a prowling coyote to a log hut. The music of the waking night-world droned on the scented air, emphasizing the calm, the delicious peace. It was like some fairy kingdom swept by strains of undefined music which haunted the ear without monotony, and peopled with shadows which the imagination could mould at its pleasure.
But in the eagerness of the moment all this was lost to the waiting men. To them it was a possible battleground; with a view to cover, it was a strategic position, and they were satisfied with it. The cattle, turned loose from the corrals, must pass up or down the valley; similarly, any number of men must approach from one of these two directions, which meant that the ambush could not be avoided.
At last the warning signal came. An owl hooted from somewhere up the valley, the cry rising in weird cadence and dying away lingeringly. And, at the same time, there came the sound of a distant rumble, like the steady drone of machinery at some far-off point. Tresler at once gave up his watch on the east and centred all attention upon the west. One of his own men had answered the owl’s cry, and a third screech came from the guard at the corrals.
The rumble grew louder. There were no moving objects visible yet, but the growing sound was less of a murmur; it was more detached, and the straining ears distinctly made out the clatter of hoofs evidently traveling fast down the valley trail. On they came, steadily hammering out their measure with crisp precision. It was a moment of tense excitement for those awaiting the approach. But only a moment, although the sensation lasted longer. The moon suddenly brought the whole thing into reality. Suspense was banished with its revealing light, and each man, steady at his post, gripped his carbine or revolver, ready to pour in a deadly fire the moment the word should be given. A troop of about eighteen horsemen dashed round a bend of the valley and plunged into the ambush.