“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.

“The gentleman with the curly hair—­I drove him in.  He is a damned poor shot—­yes?”

Oscar tightened his belt and waited for orders, while Armitage and Claiborne conferred in quick pointed sentences.

“Shall we risk a rush or starve them out?  I’d like to try hunger on them,” said Armitage.

“They’ll all sneak off over the bridge to-night if we pen them up.  If they all go at once they’ll break it down, and we’ll lose our quarry.  But you want to capture them—­alive?”

“I certainly do!” Armitage replied, and turned to laugh at Oscar, who had fired at the barricade from the back of his horse, which was resenting the indignity by trying to throw his rider.

The enemy now concentrated a sharp fire upon Armitage, whose horse snorted and pawed the ground as the balls cut the air and earth.

“For God’s sake, get off that horse, Armitage!” bawled Claiborne, rising upon, the rock.  “There’s no use in wasting yourself that way.”

“My arm aches and I’ve got to do something.  Let’s try storming them just for fun.  It’s a cavalry stunt, Claiborne, and you can play being the artillery that’s supporting our advance.  Fall away there, Oscar, about forty yards, and we’ll race for it to the wall and over.  That barricade isn’t as stiff as it looks from this side—­know all about it.  There are great chunks out of it that can’t be seen from this side.”