"I expect. Yuh see, Marvin, a while back yuh accused Rudd o' sellin' yuh out. Them words have a right innocent sound, ain't they now? Shore they have. Why, yuh blind fool, do yuh s'pose we'd be a-freezin' to yuh this way if we didn't have yuh dead to rights?"
Marvin lay very still. He almost appeared not to breathe.
"Yuh ain't got out o' this hole yet," he muttered.
"We will, don't yuh worry none about that. An' we'll take yuh with us—wherever we go. Think it all over, Marvin. I may have something' to say to yuh later."
Crack! A rifle spoke on the opposite ridge, and a bullet glanced off Loudon's boulder with a discordant whistle. Crack! Crack! Crack! Long 45-90 bullets struck the breast-work with sharp splintering sounds, or ripped overhead, humming shrilly.
"Let's work the old game on 'em," suggested Loudon. "There's room for two my side."
Laguerre crawled over and lay down beside Loudon. The latter had aligned several large rocks beside his boulder. Between these rocks the two thrust the barrels of their rifles. One would fire. On the heels of the shot an opposing rifle would spit back. Then the other would fire into the gray of the smoke-cloud.
It is an old trick, well known to the Indian fighters. Loudon and Laguerre employed it for half an hour. Then the enemy bethought themselves of it, and Laguerre returned to the other end of the breastwork with a hole in his hat and his vest neatly ripped down the back.
The five deputies kept up a dropping fire. But the two behind the breastwork replied infrequently. Ammunition must be conserved. They anticipated brisk work after nightfall. They waited, vigorously chewing pebbles, and becoming thirstier by the minute. The boulders radiated heat like ovens.
The afternoon lengthened. It was nearing five o'clock when Loudon suddenly raised his head.