“Indians,” replied Ned.

“Indians!” exclaimed Fannin in surprise.  “I did not know that there were any in this part of the country.”

“Nor did I,” replied Ned, “but they are surely here, Colonel, and if I may make a suggestion, suppose we pick sharp-shooters to meet them.”

“It is the only thing to do,” said Fannin, and immediately the best men with the rifle were placed along the edge of the hollow.  It was full time, as the fire of the red sharpshooters was creeping closer, and was doing much harm.  They were Campeachy Indians, whom the Mexicans had brought with them from their far country and, splendid stalkers and skirmishers, they were now proving their worth.  Better marksmen than the Mexicans, naked to the waist, their dark faces inflamed with the rage to kill, they wormed themselves forward like snakes, flattened against the ground, taking advantage of every hillock or ridge, and finding many a victim in the hollow.  Far back, the Mexican officers sitting on their horses watched their work with delighted approval.

Ned was not a sharpshooter like the Panther or Davy Crockett, but he was a sharpshooter nevertheless, and, driven by the sternest of all needs, he was growing better all the time.  He saw another black head raised for a moment above a hillock, and a muzzle thrust forward, but he fired first.  The head dropped back, but the rifle fell from the arms and lay across the hillock.  Ned knew that his bullet had sped true, and he felt a savage joy.

The other sharpshooters around him were also finding targets.  The Indian bullets still crashed into the crowded ranks in the hollow, but the white marksmen picked off one after another in the grass.  The moment a red face showed itself a bullet that rarely missed was sent toward it.  Here was no indiscriminate shooting.  No man pulled the trigger until he saw his target.  Ned had now fired four times, and he knew that he had not missed once.  The consuming rage still possessed him, but it was for the Mexicans rather than the Indians against whom he was sending his bullets.  Surely they were numerous enough to fight the Texans.  They ought to be satisfied with ten to one in their favor, without bringing Indians also against the tiny settlements!  The fire mounted to his brain, and he looked eagerly for a fifth head.

It was a singular duel between invisible antagonists.  Never was an entire body seen, but the crackling fire and the spurts of flame and smoke were incessant.  After a while the line of fire and smoke on the prairie began to retreat slowly.  The fire of the white sharpshooters had grown too hot and the Indians were creeping away, leaving their dead in the grass.  Presently their fire ceased entirely and then that of the white marksmen ceased also.

No sounds came from the Mexicans, who were all out of range.  In the hollow the wounded, who now numbered one-fifth of the whole, suppressed their groans, and their comrades, who bound up their hurts or gave them water, said but little.  Ned’s own throat had become parched again, but he would not ask for another drop of water.