He held the bead steady, resting his elbow on a rock. Gradually his muscles cramped in a rigid pose while the tiny dot up there in the crags hovered motionless over the tip of his front sight.
“Sho! greaser,” said Big John, lowering the rifle. “Y’ain’t done nawthin’ yit what I orter kill ye fer! Yore int’rested, jist now—it’s our chanct to make a run for it an’ git between you an’ th’ home plate, I’m thinkin’. Siddy boy, I aims to reach ye this trip!”
He crept rapidly down to where Niltci lay concealed and touched him on the shoulder. Together they wormed swiftly down the mountain and reached the sands. Here the high flanks concealed them from the view of those above. After one sharp glance around by Niltci, both ran at full speed along the base. Up and up at a gentle slant for some half a mile the sand drift led them, until they had arrived at the foot of the lava flow where it dipped down below the sands. Along its vitrified surface they sped—and then Big John stopped and gripped Niltci’s arm, breathing heavily. Above them on the lava slope an apparition had appeared. A man crouched in a sort of cave mouth up there, and he bore a rifle in his hands. He waved energetically to Big John to get under cover at once.
“Ef that ain’t Sid you can call me a tin-horn gent!” gasped Big John. “Whoopee, Sid! Keep down!—Look out, watch yourself!” he yelled out alarmedly.
His outcry was fatal. A rifle whanged out up in the cliffs above and instantly came the sharp thud of a bullet. Big John coughed, groaned in the inflectionless cry of the unconscious, and tumbled in a heap on the rocks. Niltci gave one swift glance upward at the man in the serapé who had fired, then grabbed Big John and dragged his huge shape under the shelter of a crag. Sid had disappeared as if struck flat, but the whip of his army carbine rang out sharply. A volley of shots replied, coming from all over the hillside. Bullets struck the lava apron and went whining off into space; more of them plunged down around Niltci’s position.
Bits of granite flew in a sharp dust about him. The place was utterly untenable. Niltci looked for a better lair, noted a little hollow in the crags and then jumped out and exposed himself to draw their fire for an instant. He heard shot after shot whipping out from where Sid lay, felt the terrific smash of Mausers all around him, then he picked up Big John and raced with him for cover. A sharp touch seared his arm. He felt it grow paralyzed in spite of him and it let the cowman drop violently against the rough scoriated boulders. A groan came from Big John, showing that he still lived, then the Navaho flung himself into the lair and rolled the great limp body in after him.
But this could not last! It was as hot a corner as man ever got into. Sooner or later flankers from the guerrillas above would find a position from which it could be fired into, and then nothing could save them. Niltci raised his voice in a low Navaho’s death chant, watching the rocks above him from a crevice in his lair, rifle poised for instant use. He needed help badly. Finally he sent out the word for it in a ringing call that would be understood by the Apaches, if any were near. It would be upon their honor to respond.
An occasional desultory shot now came from Sid, up there on the lava apron. Above on the mountain was silence, sinister, and foreboding. The Mexicans were creeping carefully, silently downward toward him. Presently there would be a rush of overwhelming numbers—then death!
Niltci waited, finger on trigger, eyes alert. A slight sound and the rolling of a stone came from somewhere above, but he could see nothing without exposing himself to he knew not what danger. It had been Big John who had rescued him from his own kinsmen, during those fanatical disturbances caused by the Black Panther of the Navaho, and Niltci would never desert him now! Coolly, resignedly, he awaited that final rush that would be the end of them both.
A rapid movement and the flinging of a body down behind some rocks sounded above him, right close now. Sid’s rifle sang out but its bullet was too late. Relentlessly they were closing in!