At length the rustlers rose and, with rifles in hand, they moved as one man down the slope. They came several hundred yards closer, until Jean, grimly cocking his rifle, muttered to himself that a few more rods closer would mean the end of several of that gang. They knew the range of a rifle well enough, and once more sheered off at right angles with the cabin. When they got even with the line of corrals they stooped down and were lost to Jean’s sight. This fact caused him alarm. They were, of course, crawling up on the cabins. At the end of that line of corrals ran a ditch, the bank of which was high enough to afford cover. Moreover, it ran along in front of the cabins, scarcely a hundred yards, and it was covered with grass and little clumps of brush, from behind which the rustlers could fire into the windows and through the clay chinks without any considerable risk to themselves. As they did not come into sight again, Jean concluded he had discovered their plan. Still, he waited awhile longer, until he saw faint, little clouds of dust rising from behind the far end of the embankment. That discovery made him rush out, and through the kitchen to the large cabin, where his sudden appearance startled the men.
“Get back out of sight!” he ordered, sharply, and with swift steps he reached the door and closed it. “They’re behind the bank out there by the corrals. An’ they’re goin’ to crawl down the ditch closer to us.... It looks bad. They’ll have grass an’ brush to shoot from. We’ve got to be mighty careful how we peep out.”
“Ahuh! All right,” replied his father. “You women keep the kids with you in that corner. An’ you all better lay down flat.”
Blaisdell, Bill Isbel, and the old man crouched at the large window, peeping through cracks in the rough edges of the logs. Jean took his post beside the small window, with his keen eyes vibrating like a compass needle. The movement of a blade of grass, the flight of a grasshopper could not escape his trained sight.
“Look sharp now!” he called to the other men. “I see dust.... They’re workin’ along almost to that bare spot on the bank.... I saw the tip of a rifle ... a black hat ... more dust. They’re spreadin’ along behind the bank.”
Loud voices, and then thick clouds of yellow dust, coming from behind the highest and brushiest line of the embankment, attested to the truth of Jean’s observation, and also to a reckless disregard of danger.
Suddenly Jean caught a glint of moving color through the fringe of brush. Instantly he was strung like a whipcord.
Then a tall, hatless and coatless man stepped up in plain sight. The sun shone on his fair, ruffled hair. Daggs!
“Hey, you — — Isbels!” he bawled, in magnificent derisive boldness. “Come out an’ fight!”
Quick as lightning Jean threw up his rifle and fired. He saw tufts of fair hair fly from Daggs’s head. He saw the squirt of red blood. Then quick shots from his comrades rang out. They all hit the swaying body of the rustler. But Jean knew with a terrible thrill that his bullet had killed Daggs before the other three struck. Daggs fell forward, his arms and half his body resting over, the embankment. Then the rustlers dragged him back out of sight. Hoarse shouts rose. A cloud of yellow dust drifted away from the spot.