ng him to the end of the shack. She did not
speak as she pointed downward. In the edge of the valley, just beginning
the ascent, were eight or ten men. He could not determine their exact
number for as he looked they were already disappearing under the face of
the lower dip in the mountain. They were not more than four or five
hundred yards away. It would take them a matter of twenty minutes to
make the ascent to the cabin.

He looked at Marge. Despairingly she pointed to the mountain behind
them. For a quarter of a mile it was a sheer wall of red sandstone.
Their one way of flight lay downward, practically into the faces of
their enemies.

"I was going to rouse you before it was light, _Sakewawin_," she
explained in a voice that was dead with hopelessness. "I kept awake for
hours, and then I fell asleep. Baree awakened me, and now--it is too
late."

"Yes, too late to _run_!" said David.

A flash of fire leaped into her eyes.

"You mean...."

"We can fight!" he cried. "Good God, Marge--if only I had my own rifle
now!" He thrust a hand into his pocket and drew forth the cartridges she
had given him. "Thirty-twos! And only eleven of them! It's got to be a
short range for us. We can't put up a running fight for they'd keep out
of range of this little pea-shooter and fill me as full of holes as a
sieve!"

She was tugging at his arm.

"The cabin, _Sakewawin_!" she exclaimed with sudden inspiration. "It has
a strong bar at the door, and the clay has fallen in places from between
the logs leaving openings through which you can shoot!"

He was examining Nisikoos' rifle.

"At 150 yards it should be good for a man," he said. "You get Tara and
the pack inside, Marge. I'm going to try to get two or three of our
friends as they come up over the knoll down there. They won't be looking
for bullets this early in the game and I'll have them at a disadvantage.
If I'm lucky enough to get Hauck and Brokaw...."

His eyes had selected a big rock twenty yards from the cabin from which
he could overlook the slope to the first dip below them, and as Marge
darted from him to get Tara into the cabin he crouched behind the
boulder and waited. He figured that it was not more than 150 yards to
the point where their pursuers would first appear, and he made up his
mind that he would wait until they were nearer than that before he
opened fire. Not one of those eleven precious cartridges must be wasted,
for he could count on Hauck's revolv