‘Why, Elbert, I never heard such tones as them, spoke from you before—’
‘Oh, please don’t be cross!’ in a whisper from his side. ‘I don’t know what I’d ever have done—’
‘Oh, that’s all right.’ The miles were the longest in his experience. During the last twenty minutes the horses had trudged up hill, the motor making noisy business of the grade. Then the ridge and lights below, San Pasquali, doubtless. Elbert fancied he smelled the oil wells. He would never get away from gasoline.
‘Hadn’t you better get into the car?’ he remarked to Mary Gertling.
Cal was back on old Chester. The sedan had just started down-grade, when Elbert saw three red perforations in the dark ahead. The fraction of a second later, three separate concussions shocked his ears—not gas explosions, guns! There was one scream—from the little one—and Cal’s yell directed toward the car, as he spurred forward. ‘Better turn back, Miss—they may have the town surrounded!’
Slim’s Indian and Mamie had settled down after Chester. Shouts of Mexicans sounded beyond the car, just as Elbert’s mare came to abrupt stop. The sedan had halted, too, but the lights still pointed straight ahead. Florabel wasn’t making the turn; she was either shocked helpless, or her engine stalled. In the wide fling of the head-lights, Elbert saw armed Mexicans standing across the road. Then they started this way—six or seven figures running toward them, hands upraised, rifles held aloft For once Cal’s voice lost its drawl.
‘Get in the car, Kid! Let your horse go!’
Elbert’s leg lifted out of the stirrup—one of the hardest things he was ever called to do, but that very second the lights of the sedan went out. There was one clear call from Mary Gertling, deadened by a blasting roar from the sedan’s exhaust at the very knees of his mount. Too much for Mamie. She went straight up and tried to keep going, Elbert at the very top, arms around her frantic throat at the narrowest—as the darkened sedan gouged forward like a speed-boat. Cal’s voice reached him:
‘... that Burton girl—she’s shootin’ the lines! Come on, Slim, it means us, too! Come on, Kid!’
Shots in the air—shots from ahead and at the sides.