“Little boys what asks questions finds out just what they wants to know—he-he-he!” he reproved Tom who apologized for interrupting.
“All right,” Henry said. “Well, I yelled after him, but he was runnin’ towards the excitement, hollering and shouting, and I was too busy with that horse of his to run after him. I was scared to let the critter loose for fear o’ what he’d do to me. I guessed he’d fell in with a rough gang and had decided to lead them or be with them on this raid. I judged there must be a lot of gold laid up in the mine house, waiting for burros and guards to carry it to the railroad. If I let the horse go, this fellow would maybe give me a dose of lead. So I hung on.”
“The horse was excited and scared, wasn’t he?” asked Tom.
“He was, and no mistake! He began to drag me and I hung on, yellin’ at him to quit, and him draggin’ and rearing up. First thing I knew, I was bein’ dragged over to that pass we rode in this afternoon. The bandits must o’ come out of it earlier and the horse wanted to get home, maybe. Anyhow, towards that he was draggin’ me. And then—I saw a couple of Mex. desperadoes, so they looked with their tall straw hats and dirty, raggedy clo’es, and they was drivin’ about six burros with heavy sacks tied over their backs, all they could carry!”
“Gold!” gasped Nicky.
“Gold it most likely was. Anyhow, here come that friend of mine—he was my friend once, I mean, before—” he touched his scar. “He had a rifle and was runnin’. There was still shootin’ going on, and a horse was down one place and a bandit another, and men stretched out yonder and hither. This fellow he run to me and pushed me to one side and pushed a rifle in my hand, and he said, ‘Hold this pass for ten minutes with this rifle, and then retreat up it about fifty feet, and I’ll be in ambush and I’ll surprise the guys, and what you can’t stop—I will! Then we’ll divvy the gold!’ So I grabbed the rifle and took a place. At the same minute I hear a screech and yonder, out of the sleepin’ quarters, comes a little girl, a-runnin’ as tight as she could run, with a big ruffian a-chasin’ her!”
“Oh!” cried Tom, aghast and almost shaking in his excitement, “Oh—my sis—little Margery!”
“Little girl with bright hair!” agreed Henry. “Well, before I scarcely knowed what was what that—er, friend—had shot down the ‘greasers’ with the burros, stopped the fellow chasin’ the little girl, scooped her in his arms and set her onto the saddle of his horse and was up behind her.”
“Didn’t the bandits see it?” asked Cliff.
“They had been so busy finishin’ off the engineer and the other white men—and they made a good stand, let me say it!—they was occupied too much to notice the actions goin’ on up by the pass. But they saw what was what about then, and come a-yellin’. I took cover, and begun to use that rifle. There was a full clip in it and I had another one shoved into my hands, and while that wild pal of mine rode up the pass, drivin’ the burros, I stood off about four of the bandits that wasn’t wounded.”