Pasquale turned, his eyes like cold lights on a frosty night. "They'll pray for death a hundred times before it comes to them," he promised brutally. Then, with quick surprise, "Where's Holcomb?"
"He went forward with the men."
"Just like him," replied Gabriel, shrugging his shoulders. "The madman must always be in the thick of it. It's the Gringo way."
From his mesquite thicket Yeager kept up as rapid a fire as possible, using rifle and revolver alternately so as to deceive the enemy into believing the whole party was there. His object was merely to gain time for his escaping friends. Ochampa had been wounded as an object lesson, but he did not intend to kill any of those who were surrounding him. If there had been a dozen of them he would have fought it out to a finish, but with one against a thousand he felt it would be useless murder to kill.
Steve fired into the air, knowing that would do just as well to delay the attackers. Each time he fired his revolver he called aloud softly to himself the number of the shot. It was essential to his plan that there should be one bullet left the moment before they took him.
He could hear them stumbling toward him through the brush and could make out the dark figures as they crawled forward.
"Four," he counted as he fired his revolver into the air and cut off a twig.
His rifle sang out twice. He waited, listening. Bushes crackled a few yards behind him. Snatching up his revolver, he turned.
"Don't fire, Steve," said a low voice in perfectly good English.
Holcomb came out of the thicket toward him.