“What do you think of him?”

The gaze of the bright eyes fixed upon Ned became intense and concentrated.

“A great man!  A wickedly great man!”

Roylston turned his look away, and interlaced his fingers thoughtfully.

“A good description, I think,” he said.  “You have chosen your words well.  A singular compound is this Mexican, a mixture of greatness, vanity and evil.  I may talk to you more of him some day.  But I tell you now that I am particularly desirous of not being carried a prisoner to him.”

He lifted the rifle, put its stock to his shoulder, and drew a bead.

“I think I could hit at forty or fifty yards in this good moonlight,” he said.

He replaced the rifle across his knees and sighed.  Ned was curious, but he would not ask questions, and he walked back to his old position by the bank.  Here he made himself easy, and kept his eyes on the deep trench that had been cut by the stream.  The shadows were dark against the bank, but it seemed to him that they were darker than they had been before.

Ned’s blood turned a little colder, and his scalp tingled.  He was startled but not afraid.  He looked intently, and saw moving figures in the river bed, keeping close against the bank.  He could not see faces, he could not even discern a clear outline of the figures, but he had no doubt that these were Urrea’s Mexicans.  He waited only a moment longer to assure himself that the dark moving line was fact and not fancy.  Then, aiming his rifle at the foremost shape, he fired.  While the echo of the sharp crack was yet speeding across the plain he cried: 

“Up, men! up!  Urrea is here!”

A volley came from the creek bed, but in an instant the Panther, Obed, Will and Fields were by Ned’s side.

“Down on your faces,” cried the Panther, “an’ pot ’em as they run!  So they thought to go aroun’ the grove, come down from the north an’ surprise us this way!  Give it to ’em, boys!”

The rifles flashed and the dark line in the bed of the creek now broke into a huddle of flying forms.  Three fell, but the rest ran, splashing through the sand and water, until they turned the curve and were protected from the deadly bullets.  Then the Panther, calling to the others, rushed to the other side of the grove, where a second attack, led by Urrea in person, had been begun.  Here men on horseback charged directly at the wood, but they were met by a fire which emptied more than one saddle.

Much of the charge was a blur to Ned, a medley of fire and smoke, of beating hoofs and of cries.  But one thing he saw clearly and never forgot.  It was the lame man with the thick white hair sitting with his back against a tree calmly firing a rifle at the Mexicans.  Roylston had time for only two shots, but when he reloaded the second time he placed the rifle across his knees as before and smiled.

Most Mexican troops would have been content with a single charge, but these returned, encouraged by shouts and driven on by fierce commands.  Ned saw a figure waving a sword.  He believed it to be Urrea, and he fired, but he missed, and the next moment the horseman was lost in the shadows.