233We raised our pieces, but before the command to fire was given, one of the sleepers threw aside his blanket, stretched himself and arose. It was a white man!
I confess that for a moment I turned physically sick.
“Hello!” called Bagsby, quite unmoved.
The white man seized his rifle, and the recumbent forms leaped to life.
“Who are you?” he demanded sharply. “Speak quick!”
“Keep yore ha’r on!” drawled the trapper, advancing into the light. “We’re perfectly respectable miners, out looking for a lost man; and we saw yore fire.”
The rest of us uttered a yell of joy and relief. One of the men who had been sleeping around the fire was McNally himself.
We drew together, explaining, congratulating. The strangers, six in number, turned out to be travellers from the eastern side of the ranges. They listened with interest and attention to our account of the Indian attack. McNally explained that he had been uncertain of his route in the dark; so that when he had caught sight of the fire he had made his way to it. We were still engaged in this mutual explanation when we were struck dumb by a long-drawn-out yell from the direction of our own horses.
“It is Vasquez,” explained Barry. “He wants to let us know where he is,” and he answered the yell.
But at that moment one of our own horses dashed up to the bunch of picketed animals and wheeled, trembling. Its rope bridle dangled broken from its head. Sam Bagsby darted forward to seize the hanging cord.