Lite showed a disposition to stop and take issue with the shooters who kept up a spiteful firing from the ridge.

But Applehead stopped him as he was leveling his rifle.
"If yuh shoot," he pointed out, "they'll know jest where we air and how fast we're gittin' outa here.

If yuh don't, unless their lookout kin see us movin' out, they got t' do a heap uh guessin' in the next few minutes.

They only got one chancet in three uh guessin' right, 'cause we might be camped in one spot, 'n' then agin we might be crawlin' up closer, fer all they kin tell." If they were guessing, they must have guessed right; for presently the four heard faint yells from behind them, and Applehead crawled up the bank to where he could look out across the level.

What he saw made him slide hastily to the bottom again.
"They've clumb down and straddled their ponies," he announced grimly.
"An' about a dozen is comin' down this way, keepin' under cover all they kin.