They were waiting for him.

He caught the gleam of the hot sun on their revolvers, and saw that they meant business as they swung a little apart to divide his fire.

At one hundred yards Philip still held his gun at his side; at sixty he pulled in his mare, flattened along her neck like an Indian, his pistol arm swinging free between her ears.

It was one of the cleverest fighting tricks of the service, and he made the movement as the guns of the others leaped before their faces.

Two shots sang over his head, so close that they would have swept him from the saddle if he had been erect.