The Americans pulled up their horses, and Stephens drew a pistol.
“All right,” he said. “We’re going to be in this.”
“Then pray begin by putting that pistol out of the way, there’s a good fellow,” said Major Walrond, the young man who had spoken to the half-caste. “We shall be very glad if you’ll back us up. We want to get out of it without firing on them if we can.”
“What’s the row?”
“These Mestizos belong to the rebels, and are recruiting among the Indians; promising them all sorts of plunder, no doubt, and they rather think of practising on us for a start; want us to empty our pockets and game-bags, and give up our guns and ammunition. Look out, you fellows.”
Seeing a reinforcement for the white men, yet not 137 one that need be feared so far as they could see, the ruffians were becoming impatient, and one or two had cocked their guns.
“Ride ’em down; use your whips, but for goodness’ sake don’t fire a shot while we’re on this side of the boundary,” said the senior officer hurriedly. “Bravo, Spencer; over with him”; for a subaltern had seized the rifle of one of the half-breeds and was wrenching it out of his hands. “Thank you, Mr. Stephens.”
The last remark was occasioned by the American’s felling with his pistol-stock an Indian who was taking aim at the Major. Then the white men began to hit out, shoulder to shoulder. The Indians were quickly overpowered, for they were more than half afraid of the guns they held, and, on these being wrested from them, fled to the nearest ravine. But the Mestizos were more of a handful. There had been five of them to begin with; the subaltern had disarmed one, and he had fled; Major Walrond had just knocked another down with his fist, and he lay unconscious; but the other three, artful enough to reflect that even if their opponents decided to fire on them, their guns were only charged with bird-shot, harmless at any appreciable distance, were running away with the evident intention of using their own ball-cartridges from some point of vantage.
Stephens’ matter-of-fact Yankee way of looking at things now became a valuable asset.
“We’re no British subjects,” he said hurriedly, “and you’ll not be to blame if we fire on these chaps”; and, pistol in hand, he spurred after one fugitive while 138 Catherwood pursued a second. The third fired at Catherwood, the bullet carrying away his hat, but one of the subalterns was on him before he could load again, wrenched the rifle out of his hands, and gave him a complimentary tap on the head with the butt thereof. The other two, seeing that the horsemen at least would have no scruple about using firearms, stopped when called upon to do so, and sullenly gave up their guns.