FullReads

“That didn’t seem to do me much good. The renegades were grinning and laughing to think how easy a thing they had; and I couldn’t rightly think up any arguments against the notion–at least from their standpoint. They were chattering away to each other in Mexican for the benefit of Maria. Oh, they had me all distributed, down to my suspender buttons! And me squatting behind that ore dump about as formidable as a brush rabbit!

“Then, all at once, one of my shots went off down in the shaft.

“‘Boom!’ says she, plenty big; and a slather of rocks and stones come out of the mouth, and began to dump down promiscuous on the scenery. I got one little one in the shoulder blade, and found time to wish my ore dump had a roof. But those renegades caught it square in the thick of trouble. One got knocked out entirely for a minute, by a nice piece of country rock in the head.

“‘Otra vez!’ yells I, which means ‘again.’

“‘Boom!’ goes the Ole Virginia prompt as an answer.

“I put in my time dodging, but when I gets a chance to look, the Apaches has all got to cover and is looking scared.

“‘Otra vez!’ yells I again.

“‘Boom!’ says the Ole Virginia.

“This was the biggest shot of the lot, and she surely cut loose. I ought to have been halfway up the hill watching things from a safe distance, but I wasn’t. Lucky for me the shaft was a little on the drift, so she didn’t quite shoot my way. But she distributed about a ton over those renegades. They sort of half got to their feet uncertain.

“‘Otra vez!’ yells I once more, as bold as if I could keep her shooting all day.

“It was just a cold, raw blazer; and if it didn’t go through I could see me as an Apache parlor ornament. But it did. Those Chiricahuas give one yell and skipped. It was surely a funny sight, after they got aboard their war ponies, to see them trying to dig out on horses too tired to trot.

“I didn’t stop to get all the laughs, though. In fact, I give one jump off that ledge, and I lit a-running. A quarter-hoss couldn’t have beat me to that shack. There I grabbed my good old gun, old Meat-in-the-pot, and made a climb for the tall country.”

Uncle Jim stopped with an air of finality, and began lazily to refill his pipe. From the open mud fireplace he picked a coal. Outside, the rain, faithful to the prophecy of the wide-ringed sun, beat fitfully against the roof.

“That was the closest call I ever had,” said he at last.