Desert Dust Part 43

"Aren't you thirsty?"

"Are you?"

"Yes. Why don't we drink?"

"Should we?"

"Why not? We might as well be as comfortable as we can." She reached for the canteen lying in a fast dwindling strip of rock shade. We drank sparingly. She let me dribble a few drops upon her shoulder. Thenceforth by silent agreement we moistened our tongues, scrupulously turn about, wringing the most from each brief sip as if testing the bouquet of exquisite wine. Came a time when we regretted this frugalness; but just now there persisted within us, I suppose, that germ of hope which seems to be nourished by the soul.

The Sioux had counciled and decided. They faced us, in manner determined.

We waited, tense and watchful. Without even a premonitory shout a pony bolted for us, from their huddle. He bore two riders, naked to the sun, save for breech clouts. They charged straight in, and at her mystified, alarmed murmur I was holding on them as best I could, finger crooked against trigger, coaxing it, praying for luck, when the rear rider dropped to the ground, bounded briefly and dived headlong, worming into a little hollow of the sand.

He lay half concealed; the pony had wheeled to a shrill, jubilant chorus; his remaining rider lashed him in retreat, leaving the first digging l.u.s.tily with hand and knife.

That was the system, then: an approach by rushes.

"We mustn't permit it," she breathed. "We must rout him out--we must keep them all out or they'll get where they can pick you off. Can you reach him?"

"I'll try," said I.

The tawny figure, p.r.o.ne upon the tawny sand, was just visible, lean and snakish, slightly oscillating as it worked. And I took careful aim, and fired, and saw the spurt from the bullet.

"A little lower--oh, just a little lower," she pleaded.

The same courier was in leash, posted to bring another fellow; all the Sioux were gazing, statuesque, to a.n.a.lyze my marksmanship. And I fired again--"Too low," she muttered--and quickly, with a curse, again.

She cried out joyfully. The snake had flopped from its hollow, plunged at full length aside; had started to crawl, writhing, dragging its hinder parts. But with a swoop the pony arrived before we were noting; the recruit plumped into the hollow; and bending over in his swift circle the courier s.n.a.t.c.hed the snake from the ground; sped back with him.

The Sioux seized upon the moment of stress. They cavorted, scouring hither and thither, yelling, shooting, and once more our battered haven seethed with the hum and hiss and rebound of lead and shaft. That, and my eagerness, told. The fellow in the foreground burrowed cleverly; he submerged farther and farther, by rapid inches. I fired twice--we could not see that I had even inconvenienced him. My Lady clutched my revolver arm.

"No! Wait!" The tone rang dismayed.

Trembling, blinded with heat and powder smoke, and heart sick, I paused, to fumble and to reload the almost emptied cylinder.

"I can't reach him," said I. "He's too far in."

Her voice answered gently.

"No matter, dear. You're firing too hastily. Don't forget. Please rest a minute, and drink. You can bathe your eyes. It's hard, shooting across the hot sand. They'll bring others. We've no need to save water, you know."

"I know," I admitted.

We n.i.g.g.ardly drank. I dabbled my burning eyes, cleared my sight. Of the fellow in the rifle pit there was no living token. The Sioux had ceased their gambols. They sat steadfast, again antic.i.p.ative. A stillness, menaceful and brooding, weighted the landscape.

She sighed.

"Well?"

The pregnant truce oppressed. What was hatching out, now? I cautiously shifted posture, to stretch and scan; instinctively groped for the canteen, to wet my lips again; a puff of smoke burst from the hollow, the canteen clinked, flew from my hand and went clattering among the rocks.

"Oh!" she cried, aghast. "But you're not hurt?" Then--"I saw him. He'll come up again, in a moment. Be ready."

The Sioux in the background were shrieking. They had accounted for our mules; by chance shot they had nipped our water. Yet neither event affected us as they seemed to think it should. Mules, water--these were inconsequentials in the long-run that was due to be short, at most. We husbanded other relief in our keeping.

Suddenly, as I craned, the fellow fired again; he was a good shot, had discovered a niche in our rampart, for the ball fanned my cheek with the wings of a vicious wasp. On the instant I replied, snapping quick answer.

"I don't think you hit him," she said. "Let me try. It may change the luck. You're tired. I'll hold on the spot--he'll come up in the same place, head and shoulders. You'll have to tempt him. Are you afraid, sir?"

She smiled upon me as she took the revolver.

"But if he kills me----?" I faltered.

"What of that?"

"You."

"I?" Her face filled. "I should not be long."

She adjusted the revolver to a crevice a little removed from me--"They will be hunting you, not me," she said--and crouched behind it, peering earnestly out, intent upon the hollow. And I edged farther, and farther, as if seeking for a mark, but with all my flesh a-p.r.i.c.kle and my breath fast, like any man, I a.s.sert, who forces himself to invite the striking capabilities of a rattlesnake.

Abruptly it came--the strike, so venomous that it stung my face and scalded my eyes with the spatter of sandstone and hot lead; at the moment her Colt's bellowed into my ears, thunderous because even unexpected. I could not see; I only heard an utterance that was cheer and sob in one.

"I got him! Are you hurt? Are you hurt?"

"No. Hurrah!"

"Hurrah, dear."

The air rocked with the shouts of the Sioux; shouts never before so welcome in their tidings, for they were shouts of rage and disappointment.

They flooded my eyes with vigor, wiped away the daze of the bullet impact; the hollow leaped to the fore--upon its low parapet a dull shade where no shade should naturally be, and garnished with crimson.

He had doubled forward, reflexing to the blow. He was dead, stone dead; his crafty spirit issued upon the red trail of ball through his brain.

"Thank G.o.d," I rejoiced.

She had sunk back wearily.

"That is the last."

"Won't they try again, you think?"

"The last spare shot, I mean. We have only our two left. We must save those." She gravely surveyed me.

"Yes, we must save those," I a.s.sented. The realization broke unbelievable across a momentary hiatus; brought me down from the false heights, to face it with her.

A dizzy s.p.a.ce had opened before me. I knew that she moved aside. She exclaimed.

"Look!"