le away, not a man could say a word.

"It's our fault, Cap. We ort to have follered your advice."

"Ort not to have left the camp."

"You was right."

"It's too late for that kind of talk, boys. The question for us is,
what had we best do? Anybody got anything to say?"

There was another moment of glum, sulky silence, and then a perfect
storm of angry outcries.

"Charge in on 'em!"

"Kill every soul of 'em."

"Fight right away."

"We won't lose all that's in them wagons."

"That'll do, boys. I know you've got all the grit for a fight," said
Captain Skinner, "but suppose they're too much for us, and wipe us all
out, what then?"

"Then that's what it'll have to be, Cap. We're ready."

"All right, boys. But no matter what comes, not a man of you must run.
Not for a yard."

"We'll stand by ye, Cap."

"Most likely thar ain't no use talkin' of Bill and the boys."

"Not much, I reckon. They had no kind of show."

There was no time to do any mourning for their comrades, but the way in
which that line of white horsemen now rode forward made the Lipans open
their eyes in astonishment.

"Keep about a rod apart," said the Captain. "Walk your horses. Don't
fire a shot unless you've got a good aim at something. We'll draw them
nigh enough to teach 'em a thing or two."

For once even old Two Knives, with all his cunning, was led into making
a mistake. He was unwise enough to try and scare those miners, when
there was not a man among them who knew how to be afraid, and they had
all agreed to be killed rather than not whip those Lipans and get back
what was in the wagons.

It was a bad mistake for those Indians to make even a threat of a
charge, when it brought them in a pretty compact mass, just as they
were about to wheel, instead of "charging," less than two hundred yards
from the steady line of pale-faces.

"Now, boys, save every shot."

It was not a volley. The rifles cracked rapidly, one after another,
but all were fired in a very few seconds and the Lipans recoiled in
dismay, firing wildly as they went, and carrying off their dead and
wounded.

"Keep it up, boys. Steady. Take a pony if you can't hit a redskin."

The "rally" of the Lipans was quickly made, and their own firing grew
hotter, but it had little of the cool accuracy that Captain Skinner
insisted on from his own men. All the while, too, he was moving
steadily forward, and To-la-go-to-de began to understand what kind of
men