There, too, was Coronado, looking not exactly scared, but irresolute and helpless.
"What does this mean ?" Thurstane stormed in Spanish.

"Why don't you shoot the devils ?" "We are reserving our fire," stammered Coronado, half alarmed, half ashamed.
Thurstane swore briefly, energetically, and to the point.

"Damned pretty fighting!" he went on.

"If _we_ had reserved our fire, we should all have been lanced by this time.

Let drive!" The cattle-drivers carried short rifles, of the then United States regulation pattern, which old Garcia had somehow contrived to pick up during the war perhaps buying them of drunken soldiers.