"Get yore head down to the water," Billie called into the ear of the girl.
They lay on the rocks in the shallow water and let the black smoke waves pour over them. Lee felt herself strangling and tried to rise, but a heavy hand on her shoulder held her face down. She sputtered and coughed, fighting desperately for breath. A silk handkerchief was slipped over her face and knotted behind. She felt sick and dizzy. The knowledge flashed across her mind that she could not stand this long. In its wake came another dreadful thought. Was she going to die?
The hand on her shoulder relaxed. Lee felt herself lifted to her feet. She caught at Billie's arm to steady herself, for she was still queer in the head. For a few moments she stood there coughing the smoke out of her lungs. His arm slipped around her shoulder.
"Take yore time," he advised.
A second shift of the breeze had swept the smoke away. This had saved their lives, but it had also given Snaith's men another chance at them A bullet whistled past the head of Clanton, who was for the time a few yards from his friends. Instantly he whipped the rifle up and fired.
"No luck" he grumbled. "My eyes are sore from the smoke. I can't half see."
Lee was not yet quite herself. The experience through which she had just passed had shaken her nerves.
"Let's get out of here quick!" she cried.
"Take yore time. There's no hurry," Prince iterated. "They won't shoot again, now Jim's close to us."
The younger man grinned, as he had a habit of doing when the cards fell against him. "Where'd we go? Look, they've headed us off. We can't travel forward. We can't go back. I expect we'll have to file on the quarter-section where we are," he drawled.