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riflemen. Their only advantage lay in the fact that it would not be easy for any ambushers to make a mounted charge from among the sharp rocks.
    Nothing happened for two thirds of the way and by that time they knew that their opponent, whoever he was, Indian or white, was a good general. By this time most men would have been near to reassurance that no attack was coming. They could also be almost beaten down by the overpowering heat.
    They were within a mile of the desert and the worst of the rocks giving way to more open ridges when the shot came.
    The offside leader of McAllister’s wagon, a big dun animal, swerved sharply to the right and stumbled to its knees. Its partner spooked, trod over the traces and nearly went down. The pair behind collided with both of them and the offside dun was trodden on. It screamed and the following pairs got entangled with the traces and several fights broke out.
    Mcallister moved fast. He pushed the woman beside him into the wagon, snatching up his Remington and firing immediately at smoke drifting among the rocks to his right.
    At once someone fired from the left of the trail and he heard a bullet, ripped through canvas and thud into the goods behind him. Then Sam’s rifle started to slam out its reply. As arranged, Mcallister concentrated on the right hand attacker. Firing broke out further along the train as each wagon came to an untidy halt. There was no chance of laagering here, for there was no room and bitterly he knew they would have to shoot it out and that would mean he would lose men. An unpleasant thought.
    As he took another steady shot at the crown of a hat high above him, the woman shouted in his ear: “Get into the wagon.”
    The long barrel of the Henry poked past his hip and he knew that she was going to join the ball.
    â€œCan you shoot that thing?”
    â€œAs good as you.”
    â€œOkay—give me cover. I’m going into those rocks.”
    A heavy ball slammed into wood near his feet and a rear mule started an attempt to kick the wagon to pieces. The noise of guns, frightened animals and shouting men was deafening.
    He heard the woman scream—
    â€œYou’re crazy.”
    He said: “Ain’t I?” and jumped from the wagon.
    His injured leg gave under him and he fell forward and rolled helplessly. That saved his life most likely because lead hummed close over him. Feeling foolish and furious, he drove himself relentlessly to his feet, compelled himself to use his right leg and limped grotesquely in a series of hops and jumps to the nearest cover. Which was not much because there were riflemen on both sides of the trail and one man on the other side had full view of him. He must have done—bullets began to flatten themselves against the rock all around him as somebody levered and triggered as fast as a man could. He didn’t know it, but when the hail of lead had stopped it was because Sam had managed to get a bead on the ambusher and shoot him through his head.
    Glancing over his shoulder, Mcallister saw that several mules were down and the lieutenant and another man had reached the rocks and were climbing rapidly in the face of heavy fire. That left the guard on the wagons pretty thin, but Mcallister reckoned it was worth the gamble. Sitting ontheir rumps on the wagons they would never clear those bushwhackers out of the rocks.
    He started crawling forward and up, hugging cover close and with the will to murder in his heart. Somebody from above spotted him and started shooting, but Mrs. Bankroft got her rifle lined up on him and soon discouraged him.
    The stones were cutting the knees of his cord pants to threads and the heat was coming off the rocks with the intensity of a furnace so that the sweat ran down Mcallister in a continuous stream. Dust and the acrid fumes of his expended black powder choked him. Behind him was a deafening cacophony of sound: a mule hee-hawing, another down and screaming like a mortally