As he looked about he saw Armitage, his horse at a walk, ride slowly out of the wood at his right. Claiborne jumped up and waved his hat and a rifle-ball flicked his coat collar as lightly as though an unseen hand had tried to brush a bit of dust from it. As he turned toward the marksman behind the cedars three shots, fired in a volley, hummed about him. Then it was very still, with the Sabbath stillness of early morning in the hills, and he heard faintly the mechanical click and snap of the rifles of Chauvenet's party as they expelled their exploded cartridges and refilled their magazines.
"They're really not so bad--bad luck to them!" he muttered. "I'll be ripe for the little brown men after I get through with this;" and Claiborne laughed a little and watched Armitage's slow advance out into the open.
The trio behind the barricade had not yet seen the man they had crossed the sea to kill, as the line of his approach closely paralleled the long irregular wall with its fringe of cedars; but they knew from Claiborne's signal that he was there. The men had picketed their horses back of the little fort, and Claiborne commended their good generalship and wondered what sort of beings they were to risk so much upon so wild an adventure.
Armitage rode out farther into the opening, and Claiborne, with his eyes on the barricade, saw a man lean forward through the cedars in an effort to take aim at the horseman. Claiborne drew up his own rifle and blazed away. Bits of stone spurted into the air below the target's elbow, and the man dropped back out of sight without firing.
"I've never been the same since that fever," growled Claiborne, and snapped out the shell spitefully, and watched for another chance.
Being directly in front of the barricade, he was in a position to cover Armitage's advance, and Oscar, meanwhile, had taken his cue from Armitage and ridden slowly into the field from the left. The men behind the cedars fired now from within the enclosure at both men without exposing themselves; but their shots flew wild, and the two horsemen rode up to Claiborne, who had emptied his rifle into the cedars and was reloading.
"They are all together again, are they?" asked Armitage, pausing a few yards from Claiborne's rock, his eyes upon the barricade.