There was another moment of glum, sulky silence, and then a perfect storm of angry outcries.
"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."
"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.
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 he had to deal with.
A sharp, deep-throated order to three of his braves was rapidly obeyed, and in a few minutes more the miners heard their Captain's voice, excitedly,
"Halt! They've brought out the boys. They've stopped firing."