“My husband, he is good,” she reflected. “Ah, very good, but he is as homely as a—monkey.”
Wiping two little tears from the corners of her eyes, she stepped quickly back into her room.
The time passed very slowly for Stephen. The clock in the courtyard below struck two. His rifle barrel began to feel cold in his fingers, as he fought against sleep. The night had grown thicker, and he could no longer see far out into the distance.
“It will be morning soon,” he thought. “I don’t believe that the Yaquis mean business this time.”
Even as he spoke, his ear caught a low sound. Then there was a silence. Doubtingly, he leaned far out over the wall, and listened intently. Again he heard the sound; again it ceased. Then once more it arose and became continuous,—very soft, but insistent, a solid, dull, irregular thud, as of many hoofs beating upon soft ground. The blood in Stephen’s face boiled with quivering excitement. The hoof-beats came nearer and nearer, then stopped. The next sound that he heard was a grating click by the corral, as of some one slipping down the bars. He thought with lightning rapidity: “A shot will be the best way to awaken the men.”
Almost instantly afterwards he saw against the gray-white of the opposite side of the court a shadow, then another and another. Kneeling behind the coping, he covered the leader with his rifle.
The click of the action as he cocked his Winchester sounded to him preternaturally loud. He dropped the muzzle of his rifle a fraction of an inch until the first shadow drifted across the sights. He fired, and the shadow dropped. The flash of his rifle was answered from the dark by a dozen spurts of flame. All around him the bullets whined, or clicked against the dry adobe, sending great chips flying in all directions. Three times Loring fired, lying with the butt of his rifle cuddled close against his cheek. Would the men below never hear!
As the vague shapes rushed across the court for the door with a shrill yell, five knife-like jets of flame shot from the windows, and the reports echoed staccato in answer to the fusillade from the courtyard. The leaders of the Yaquis had almost reached the shelter of the doorway, but the angle windows fairly spat fire as the defenders emptied their repeaters. Unable to face the withering fire the raiders wavered, then fell back to the line of the irrigation ditches, whence they sent a rain of bullets against the windows of the houses. The tinkle of breaking glass on all sides was mingled with the reports of the rifles. The surprise had been complete for the Yaquis, as they had expected to find the ranch unprotected.
As soon as this first attack was repulsed, Stephen ran to the ladder and jumped down to join the others. His rifle barrel was burning hot from the rapidity of his fire.