"I never could get dad to give up swearing," his daughter told her new friends by way of humorous apology. "Wonder what he'll do now."
"Wait till night an' drive us out of our hole, I expect," replied Prince.
"Will he wait? I'm not so sure of that," said Jim. "See. His men are scattering. They're up to somethin'."
"They're going down to cross the river to get behind us just as you said they would," predicted Lee.
She was right. Half an hour later, from her position on the bank above the cave, she caught a glimpse of a man slipping forward through the brush. She called to Prince, who crept out from behind the tumble weeds to join her. A bullet dug into the soft clay not ten inches from his head. He scrambled up and lay down behind a patch of soapweed a few yards from the girl. Another bullet from across the river whistled past the cowpuncher.
Lee rose and walked across to the bushes where he lay crouched. Very deliberately she stood there, shading her eyes from the sun as she looked toward the sharpshooters. Twice they had taken a chance, because of the distance between her and Prince. She intended they should know how close she was to him now.
Billie could not conceal his anxiety for her. "Why don't you get back where you were? I got as far as I could from you on purpose. What's the sense of you comin' right up to me when you see they're shootin' at me?"
"That's why I came up closer. They'll have to stop it as long as I'm here."
"You can't stay there the rest of yore natural life, can you?" he asked with manifest annoyance. Even if he got out of his present danger alive—and Billie had to admit to himself that the chances did not look good—he knew it would be cast up to him some day that he had used Lee Snaith's presence as a shield against his enemies. "Why don't you act reasonable an' ride back to town, like a girl ought to do? You've been a good friend to us. There's nothin' more you can do. It's up to us to fight our way out."
He took careful aim and fired. A man in the bushes two hundred yards back of them scuttled to his feet and ran limping off. Billie covered the dodging man with his rifle carefully, then lowered his gun without firing.