There were several ways in which the ravine might be attacked if—as he suspected—Lovell had gone out to make peace with the others and to lead them into the place where Jim Silver lay helpless and wounded. The best and the safest way would be to send at least one man up to the top of the height and let him command the whole battle arena with a rifle after he had posted himself among the rocks above.
Then the remainder could work their way down through the ravine and come to action with Wayland and his pitiful single rifle.
That was the logical way of going about things, but men who have great odds of numbers in their favor are not so apt to do things in the most intelligent way. Like strong bulls, they are apt to close their eyes and to rush straight forward. That was what the four crooks would do. Way-land was convinced. For they all knew that he was not a great fighter, and that he was probably a clumsy hand with weapons.
That was what convinced him that the best thing he could do was to leave his place of last retreat and to attack the enemy on the march if he could. Fight fire with fire. That was the way.
When he had made up his mind, he pulled the rifle out of the saddle scabbard on the big stallion. It was loaded, and in perfect condition, as every weapon in the possession of Silver was sure to be.
Now he stood up and looked wistfully down at the face of the wounded man. The moonlight sloped into the cutback. It did not reach Silver with its direct light, but it threw glittering reflections from the face of the quartzite rocks all around. Those reflections showed Silver like an image of cut stone. It showed him faintly smiling, the master of his pain even when he lay half senseless with the recently inflicted wound.
Now the eyes of the wounded man opened.
“Are you going, Wayland?” he asked in his quiet way.
The thought that he might be suspected of leaving his post tore the heart of Wayland. He dropped down on one knee and took the head of Silver.
“Not for long,” he said. “I’m coming back—as soon as I can.”
“All right,” said Silver. “Good luck, old son.”
Wayland turned away and walked rapidly from the end of the ravine until he came to the narrow throat of the little canyon, dodging the brush that half filled the place as he went along.
He picked out a spot where there was a small boulder —a small rock, but one that would cover him well enough. He lay down behind this and began to study the shadows before him.
The light was terribly treacherous. It seemed almost safer to try to shoot by starlight than by the partial glances which the moon threw into this gorge. Here it glimmered, and there it was gone. Here it painted the face of a rock with its blackest shadow, and there it gave out a glimmering from the crystals of the stone.
As he waited, he felt that this straining of his eyes at one object after another was accomplishing no good except to strain the optic nerve and bewilder his brain entirely. Yet he kept on pointing his rifle at one dim target after another, calculating his aim, and steadying his nerves always for the trial that he was sure would come.
Something whispered over his head. It was the shadowy flight of an owl, cleaving the air with wings of an enormous size. Apollyon approached sometimes in the form of a night bird, the old books said. What is it that men see before their death? Only a few have had sufiicient breath to gasp out a few words of revelation before their eyes are finally closed and their throats sealed.
It seemed to him that he had seen death actually in the air above him.
He recovered from his thoughts, and, staring down the ravine, suddenly he was aware of a man stepping out from a blackness of tall shrubbery. A man, and another, and another, and another. Not in single file, but in a soft-stepping group.
His heart raced. His eyes went black for an instant.
Then he leveled the rifle carefully. He took the leading form. His hands were shaking terribly. Then he fired.
The leader did not fall, but leaped instead high into the air, and landed running. The other three were already scattering to either side. As he pumped lead at them rapidly, poor Wayland knew that he was missing with every shot.
But now they were out of sight. He heard voices cursing. It was his name that was being cursed. Then a silence followed. He strained eyes and ears from this side of the rock and then from the other. Every moment he expected to see four forms grow up out of the ground and charge at him to beat him down with a single powerful rush.
He had failed; he had failed! Would any other one of the lot of them have failed, given similar chances? He knew that they would not. They would not have had the dreadful shuddering of nerves and muscles as they leveled their weapons at human lives. Rather, they would have rejoiced.
Every moment now the gorge was beginning to be a place of greater danger, for as the moon mounted higher, it threw an increasing multitude of small and glinting lights into the interior.
Then something struck the sand beside him and threw the stuff in a shower over him, into his face, half blinding him. The report of gun barked sharply in his ears.
It came from high up on the left-hand side of the ravine. He heard the triumphant yell of the marksman. Another bullet flattened on the rock before him. Another whirred through the air over his head, and a chorus of shouts broke out from the three men who remained in hiding in down the valley.
Well, they had him, all right, and he knew it. He stared at the winking fire flashes of the gun up the side of the ravine, and did not even try to answer the bullets. There was no use. The fellow was sure to have perfect cover. Wayland’s rock was no longer a protection to him, but if he dared to get up and bolt to the rear, that would be the very thing that the three men down the valley were waiting for. And they would riddle him with bullets as he ran.
Had they already come behind him? Something certainly moved among the brush behind him and to the left.
He stared with dread in that direction, and then he made out the nodding head of a horse. Next he saw a strange sight indeed through a gap in the brush where the moonlight fell sheer down.
He saw Parade walking slowly forward. He saw a body dragging from one stirrup. And then he made out that it was Jim Silver who was being so oddly transported. There had not been strength enough in him to wait, but, like a good soldier, when he heard the noise of guns, he had to go toward it. Therefore he had perhaps ordered I the stallion to kneel beside him, and, getting a grip with his teeth on the bottom of the stirrup leather, he had managed to order the horse to rise again and to go forward.
For that was what was happening, and Parade was marching into the battle, dragging his master at his feet. Wayland could see the gleaming of the naked revolver which dragged, also, in the hand of Silver. And at the side of the man skulked the great wolf, looking a great deal like a form of the moonlight when it struck on his pale-gray fur.
Yes, that was the miracle that appeared for a few seconds through the gap in the brush and was lost to view again.
Then another bullet from the marksman up the slope snatched the hat from the head of Wayland. The very next shot of all would scatter his brains, no doubt. He worked a bit to one side. Down the valley the men were laughing. He could hear their voices. He could distinguish the high, whining mirth of Lovell.
Once more the marksman up the side of the ravine fired, and something like a hot knife slashed through the surface flesh of Wayland’s side.
He gathered himself. It was better to charge straight in to the face of danger than to lie still and be shot to pieces. He would charge—and Jim Silver would see him die!