saw it as soon as I, but his practical mind worked faster than mine. Close at hand was an outcrop of broken rock grown around with stunted fir saplings, low and bushy, and he turned for it without hesitation, with the instinct for cover of a hunted animal. We went into it like a brace of hard-run foxes going to earth. Ignace simply collapsed and lay panting. I was winded, too, not from running, for I could have kept going half a day at that gait, but from helping him. But as the low branches swished to behind me, I dropped down and peered back, and thanked the Lord for old Siwash George's 45-70.
It was Hayes, Conover, and the breed who had chased us. They had joined forces, in the shelter of another patch of brush. And behind them, as I looked, came old Siwash George himself in a staggery jog trot, and I could imagine the language he was using.
Our sheltering thicket was not more than a hundred feet through in any direction, and was one of several, scattered irregularly like islands, a tow hundred yards apart, the spaces between being patched with short growths of saskatoons, soap berry, and brier. I crept through to the farther side. As I had feared, there was the rest of the outfit—Ballou and Louis and McGregor. There was no running that gantlet. All we could do was to make a stand. And I cursed old Siwash George because he had not packed more cartridges.
Presently Ballou circumnavigated our position, giving it a very wide berth, and no doubt he joined Hayes, though I had lost sight of that gentleman. Shortly afterward, they began a general advance, picking cover carefully, working in under shelter of isolated clumps of trees. I wanted to blaze away at every bush that shook, but I knew I had no ammunition to waste. Beside me, Ignace Mountain lay quietly resting. Whatever he felt found no expression in his face, and he did not suggest that I should let him handle the rifle.
"Something will happen in a minute," I said.
"Yas," he agreed. "S'pose him get close, begin to shoot. Mebbe so we go mimoluse this time."
I thought that very likely, and I certainly did not want to be shot.
"I'm scared," I admitted. "Halo skookum tumtum, me! How about you, Ignace?"
He shook his head, smiling.
"Don't care," he said. "One time me have hyas yutl tumtum—me hyas happy, me like to live. Long time ago. Now no more. Me kill Nootka Challie. Good! Now me go mimoluse. All right."
A bullet ripped just above our heads, bringing down a shower of fir needles; and another threw up a spatter of dirt. I could see the smoke, but not the marksman, and I waited, husbanding my precious cartridges. Then, for an instant, beside a stump among the bushes, I caught a glimpse of a man's body. It was hidden before I could draw a sight on it, but I covered the spot and waited. In a moment I saw it again. I caught the sight fair and touched the trigger. The old weapon bellowed, and my mark disappeared, but in a moment there it was again. Thinking I had perhaps overshot, not being familiar with the sights, I held lower and pulled more carefully. That time the bullet kicked dirt; and hastily, while I had the chance, I fired a third time, holding higher. The object moved quickly into the protection of the stump.
"You hit um?" Ignace queried.
"If I didn't, I don't know why. I was dead on him."
But as I spoke there was a shot from that very spot. I was disgusted, for with my own rifle I could have put five out of six bullets into a playing card at that distance. How in blazes was this old gas pipe sighted, anyway? Or was the rifling worn so that it threw wild, or the ammunition bad? But the report was clean and hard, and there was a quick punch to the recoil, so that apparently the cartridges were all right and the twist still good.
As I peered out, lying very low, I saw my man's body again, but this time on the other side of the stump. I could see almost half his body. He was keeping his head in cover like an ostrich. I drew the sight just outside the line of the stump.
"Halo shoot!" Ignace exclaimed swiftly. "Him hang coat on bush, shove him out. No man stop inside coat."
The man behind the stump had worked a trick on me ancient as gunpowder itself. I had wasted three precious shells. Well, it could not be helped, and I was relieved to know that the fault was not with the rifle. Thereafter my foxy stump artist exposed his coat in vain, and I think his experience with it made him respect my shooting, for he did not show himself, either.