From a distance came the sound of heavy, rapid firing, of far, faint yells.
“The boys are attackin’ the gulch,” Dud guessed. “Sounds like they might be makin’ a clean-up too.”
It was three o’clock by Bob’s big silver watch. Heat waves were shimmering in the hollow and mosquitoes singing. Occasionally Houck’s voice rose in delirious excitement. Sometimes he thought the Utes were torturing him. Again he lived over scenes in the past. Snatches of babble carried back to the days of his turbulent youth when all men’s cattle were his. In the mutterings born of a sick brain Bob heard presently the name of June.
“... Tell you I’ve took a fancy to you. Tell you Jake Houck gets what he wants. No sense you rarin’ around, June. I’m yore man.... Mine, girl. Don’t you ever forget it. Mine for keeps.... Use that gun, damn you, or crawl into a hole. I’m takin’ yore wife from you. Speak yore piece. Tell her to go with me. Ha! Ha! Ha!”
The firing came nearer.
Again Dud guessed what was taking place. “They’ve got the Utes outa the gulch an’ are drivin’ them down the valley. Right soon they’re liable to light on us hard. Depends on how much the boys are pressin’ them.”
They had two rifles and four revolvers, for Houck had lately become a two-gun man. These they examined carefully to make sure they were in order. The defenders crouched back to back in the pit, each of them searching the thicket for an angle of one hundred and eighty degrees.
The sound of the battle died down. Evidently the pursuers were out of contact with the natives.
“Don’t like that,” Dud said. “If the Utes have time they’ll try to pick us up as they’re passin’.”
Bob fired.