"Walt! Wait until they get to their feet!" Hamlin cried eagerly. "Ah! there they come--now unlimber."
He saw only those black, indistinct figures, leaping out of the smoke, converging on the coach, their naked arms uplifted, their voices mingling in savage yells. Like lightning he worked his rifle, heart throbbing to the excitement, oblivious to all else; almost without realization he heard the deeper bellow of Moylan's Winchester, the sharp bark of a revolver at his very ear. Gonzales was all right, then! Good! He never thought of the girl, never saw her grip the pistol from the Mexican's dead hand, and crawl white-faced, over his body, to that front seat. All he really knew was that those devils were coming, leaping, crowding through the smoke wreathes; he saw them stumble, and rise again; he saw one leap into the air, and then crash face down; he saw them break, circling to right and left, crouching as they ran. Two reached the stage--only two! One pitched forward, a revolver bullet between his eyes, his head wedged in the spokes of the wheel; the other Hamlin struck with emptied rifle-barrel as his red hand gripped the door, sending him sprawling back into the dirt. It was all the work of a minute, an awful minute, intense, breathless--then silence, the smoke drifting away, the dark night hiding the skulking runners.