The Heritage of the Sioux by B. M. Bower (best books to read for teens .txt) 📗

“Fight 'em off—and take care that your backs don't show to those babies on the rim-rocks,” he ordered instantly, thrusting his glasses into their case and snatching his rifle from its boot on the saddle. “They won't tackle coming across that bare hollow, even if they can get down into it without breaking their necks. Happy, lead your horse in here between these rocks where mine is. Bud, see if you can get the pack-horses over there outa sight among those bushes and rocks. We'll hold 'em off while you fix the horses—can't let ourselves be set afoot out here!”

“I-should-say—NOT!” Andy Green punctuated the sentence with a shot or two. “Say, I wish they'd quit sneaking around in those trees that way, so a fellow could see where to shoot!”

A half hour dragged by. From the rim-rock came occasional shots, to which the besieged could not afford to reply, they were so fully occupied with holding back those who skulked among the trees. The horses, fancying perhaps that this was a motion-picture scene, dozed behind their rock-and-brush shelters and switched apathetically at buzzing flies and whining bullets alike. Their masters crouched behind their bowlders and watched catlike for some open demonstration, and fired when they had the slightest reason to believe that they would hit something besides scenery.

“Miguel must have upset their plans a little,” Luck deduced after a lull. “They set the stage for us down in that hollow, I guess. You can see what we'd have been up against if we had ridden ten rods farther, out away from these rocks and bushes.”

“Aw, they wouldn't dast kill a bunch uh white men!” Happy Jack protested, perhaps for his own comfort.

“You think they wouldn't? Luck's voice was surcharged with sarcasm. What do you think they're trying to do, then?”

“Aw, the gov'ment wouldn't STAND fer no such actions!”

“Well, by cripes, I hain't aimin' to give the gov'ment no job uh setting on my remains, investigatin' why I was killed off!” Big Medicine asserted, and took a shot at a distant grimy Stetson to prove he meant what he said.

“Say, they'd have had a SNAP if we'd gone on, and let these fellows back here in the trees close up behind us!” Andy Green exclaimed suddenly, with a vividness of gesture that made Happy Jack try to swallow his Adam's apple. “By gracious, it would have been a regular rabbit-drive business. They could set in the shade and pick us off just as they darned pleased.”

“Aw, is that there the cheerfullest thing you can think of to say?” Happy Jack was sweating, with something more than desert heat.

“Why, no. The cheerfullest thing I can think of right now is that Mig, here, don't ride with his eyes shut.” He cast a hasty glance of gratitude toward the Native Son, who flushed under the smooth brown of his cheeks while he fired at a moving bush a hundred yards back in the grove.

For another half hour nothing was gained or lost. The Indians fired desultorily, spatting bit& of lead here and there among the rocks but hitting nobody. The Happy Family took a shot at every symptom of movement in the grove, and toward the rim-rock they sent a bullet now and then, just to assure the watchers up there that they were not forgotten, and as a hint that caution spelled safety.

For themselves, the boys were amply protected there on the side of the Frying-pan where the handle stretched out into the open land toward the mountain. Perhaps here was once a torrent flowing from the basin-like hollow walled round with rock; at any rate, great bowlders were scattered all along the rim as though spewed from the basin by some mighty force of the bygone ages. The soil, as so often happens in the West, was fertile to the very edge of the Frying-pan and young pinons and bushes had taken root there and managed to keep themselves alive with the snow-moisture of winter, in spite of the scanty rainfall the rest of the year.

The boys were amply protected, yes; but there was not a drop of water save what they had in their canteens, and there was no feed for their horses unless they chose to nibble tender twigs off the bushes near them and call that food. There was, of course, the grain in the packs, but there was neither time nor opportunity to get it out. If it came to a siege, luck and his boys were in a bad way, and they knew it. They were penned as well as protected there in that rocky, brushy neck. The most that they could do was to discourage any rush from those back in the grove; as to getting through that grove themselves, and out in the open, there was not one chance in a hundred that they could do it.

From the outside in to where they were entrenched was just a trifle easier. The Indiana in the grove were all absorbed in watching the edge of the Frying-pan and had their backs to the open, never thinking that white men would be coming that way; for had not the other party been decoyed around the farther end of the big butte, and did not several miles and a barbed-wire fence lie between?

So when Applehead and his three, coming in from the north, approached the grove, they did it under cover of a draw that hid them from sight. From the shots that were fired, Applehead guessed the truth; that Luck's bunch had sensed danger before they had actually ridden into the Frying-pan itself, and that the Navajos were trying to drive them out of the rocks, and were not making much of a success of it.

“Now,” Applehead instructed the three when they were as close as they could get to the grove without being seen, “I calc'late about the best thing we kin do, boys, is t' spur up our hosses and ride in amongst 'em shooting and a-hollerin'. Mebby we kin jest natcherlay stampede 'em—but we've sure got t' git through In' git under cover mighty dang suddent, er they'll come to theirselves an' wipe us clean off'n the map—if they's enough of 'em. These here that's comin' along after us, they'll help t' swell the party, oncet they git here. I calc'late they figger 't we're runnin' head-on into a mess uh trouble, 'n' they don't want t' colleck any stray bullets—'n' that's why they've dropped back in the last half mile er so. Haze them pack bosses up this way, Pink, so'st they won't git caught up 'fore they git t' what the rest air. Best use yore six-guns fer this, boys—that'll leave ye one hand t' guide yore bosses with, and they're handier all around in close—work. Air ye ready? Then come on—foller me 'n' come a-whoopin'!”

A-whooping they came, up out of the draw and in among the trees as though they had a regiment behind them. Certain crouching figures jumped, sent startled glances behind them and ran like partridges for cover farther on. Only one or two paused to send a shot at these charging fiends who seemed bent on riding them down and who yelled like devils turned loose from the pit. And before they had found safe covert on the farther fringes of the grove and were ready to meet the onslaught, the clamor had ceased and the white men had joined those others among the rocks.

So now there were nine men cornered here on the edge of the Frying-pan, with no water for their horses and not much hope of getting out of there.

“Darn you, Applehead, why didn't you keep out of this mess?” Luck demanded