Mart took his forty-odd men back to the firs and scrub oaks at the lower point of the western hills, and there they stretched out in the brush, and prepared to bombard the ranch house.  The moonlight was now Mart’s friend instead of his enemy.  The sheepmen were divided.  Those on the hills would come in range of the cattlemen’s rifles if they attempted to cross the moonlit valley, and in the meantime they were harmless.

A number of volleys were fired into the house, not at the windows, but beneath the window ledges.  When men are besieged in a house they must fire from the windows, kneeling by them.  Several of the cattlemen’s bullets tearing through the wooden wall of the house had caught these kneeling figures, and the fire from the place, never accurate, began to weaken.  Mart had another purpose in view, but of that he said nothing.  Possibly he was mortified by the failure of his sheep raid.

Knowing Injun and Whitey as you do, you can imagine that they got as near to this dangerous situation as they could.  No one ordered them back because no one noticed them.  But they fired no shots.  The wish to kill any man, no matter how vile, filled no part of Whitey’s young life.  It would be hard to answer for Injun.  Hard to tell what the blood of all his fighting forefathers was prompting him to do.

But Injun couldn’t fire a shot if he wanted to.  You may remember the Winchester that had been presented to Injun at the Bar O Ranch.  He had left the gun at home.  Injun knew nothing of the modern silencer, but he had one of his own—­his bow and arrows.  When he had started out in pursuit of the horse-thief, whom he supposed to be Henry Dorgan, Injun had carried these.  No explosive gunshots for him.  He expected to have to work silently.

While most of the men had their eyes and the sights of their guns fixed on the house, Mart Cooley kept his eyes on the sky.  But despite this Mart noticed that no shots came from two figures near him, and looking closer he saw the crouching Whitey and Injun, the latter with his bow and arrows.  Mart was about to speak to them, when a cloud crossed the moon.  Mart gave vent to an oath of satisfaction and started forward.  Then he thought of something, came back, and grasping Injun by the arm, dragged him forward with him.

It was a large cloud that obscured the moon, so there was a long period of darkness.  Whitey stayed where he was.  He wondered whether Mart Cooley would come and drag him forward, and rather hoped so.  He wondered whether this darkness would give the men on the hills a chance to join their fellows in the ranch house.  And Whitey also wondered where Buck Milton was.  He hadn’t seen him with the party.  But Buck was lying out there on the plain; that is, the mortal Buck was.  The other Buck was probably with his friend Tom.

At last Whitey’s curiosity could hold him back no longer, and he crept forward to the front line of men, keeping well to one side.  They had ceased firing, the house was dark.  And the sheepmen there had ceased firing too.  Their only marks had been the flashes of the cattlemen’s guns, and those showed no longer.