Billie could not conceal his anxiety for her. "Why don't you get back where you were? I got as far as I could from you on purpose. What's the sense of you comin' right up to me when you see they're shootin' at me?"

"That's why I came up closer. They'll have to stop it as long as I'm here."

"You can't stay there the rest of yore natural life, can you?" he asked with manifest annoyance. Even if he got out of his present danger alive--and Billie had to admit to himself that the chances did not look good--he knew it would be cast up to him some day that he had used Lee Snaith's presence as a shield against his enemies. "Why don't you act reasonable an' ride back to town, like a girl ought to do? You've been a good friend to us. There's nothin' more you can do. It's up to us to fight our way out."

He took careful aim and fired. A man in the bushes two hundred yards back of them scuttled to his feet and ran limping off. Billie covered the dodging man with his rifle carefully, then lowered his gun without firing.

"Let him go," said Prince aloud. "Mr. Dumont won't bother us a whole lot.

He's gun-shy anyhow."

From across the river came a scatter of bullets.

"They've got to hit closeter to that before they worry me," Jim called to the two above.

"I don't think they shot to hit. They're tryin' to scare Miss Lee away,"

called down Billie.

"As if I didn't know dad wouldn't let 'em take any chances with me here,"

the girl said confidently "If we can hold out till night I can stay here and keep shooting while you two slip away and hide. Before morning your friends ought to arrive."

"If they got yore message."

"Oh, they got it. Jack Goodheart carried it."

The riflemen across the river were silent for a time. When they began sniping again, it was from such an angle that they could aim at the cave without endangering those above. Both Clanton and Prince returned the fire.

Presently Lee touched on the shoulder the man beside her.

"Look!"

She pointed to a cloud of smoke behind them. From it tongues of fire leaped up into the air. Farther to the right a second puff of smoke could be seen, and beyond it another and still a fourth jet.

After a moment of dead silence Prince spoke. "They've fired the prairie.

The wind is blowin' toward us. They mean to smoke us out."

"Yes."

"We'll be driven down into the open bed of the river where they can pick us off."

The girl nodded.

"Now, will you leave us?" Billie turned on her triumphantly. He could at least choose the conditions of the last stand they must make. "They've called our bluff. It's a showdown."

"Now I'll go less than ever," she said quietly.

Chapter XVI

Three Modern Musketeers

The fierce crackling of the flames rolled toward them. The wind served at least the one purpose of lifting the smoke so that it did not stifle those on the river-bank. Clanton crept up from the cave and joined them.

"Looks like we're goin' out with fireworks, Billie," he grinned.

"That's nonsense," said Lee sharply. "There's a way of escape, if only we can find it."

"Blamed if I see it," the young fellow answered. As he looked at her the eyes in his pale face glowed. "But I see one thing. You're the best little pilgrim that ever I met up with."

The heat of the flames came to them in waves.

"You walk out, climb on yore horse, an' ride down the river, Miss Lee.

Then we'll make a break for cover. You can't do anything more for us,"

insisted Prince.

"That's right," agreed the younger man. "We'll play this out alone. You cut yore stick an' drift. If we git through I'll sure come back an' thank you proper some day."

Recently Lee had read "The Three Musketeers." From it there flashed to her a memory of the picture on the cover.

"I know what we'll do," she said, coughing from a swallow of smoke. She stepped between them and tucked an arm under the elbow of each. "All for one, and one for all. Forward march!"

They moved down the embankment side by side to the sand-bed close to the stream, each of the three carrying a rifle tucked close to the side. From the chaparral keen eyes watched them, covering every step they took with ready weapons. Miss Lee's party turned to the right and followed the river-bed in the direction of Los Portales. For the wind was driving the fire down instead of up. Those in the mesquite held a parallel course to cut off any chance of escape.

Some change of wind currents swept the smoke toward them in great billows. It enveloped the fugitives in a dense cloud.

"Get yore head down to the water," Billie called into the ear of the girl.

They lay on the rocks in the shallow water and let the black smoke waves pour over them. Lee felt herself strangling and tried to rise, but a heavy hand on her shoulder held her face down. She sputtered and coughed, fighting desperately for breath. A silk handkerchief was slipped over her face and knotted behind. She felt sick and dizzy. The knowledge flashed across her mind that she could not stand this long. In its wake came another dreadful thought. Was she going to die?

The hand on her shoulder relaxed. Lee felt herself lifted to her feet.

She caught at Billie's arm to steady herself, for she was still queer in the head. For a few moments she stood there coughing the smoke out of her lungs. His arm slipped around her shoulder.

"Take yore time," he advised.

A second shift of the breeze had swept the smoke away. This had saved their lives, but it had also given Snaith's men another chance at them A bullet whistled past the head of Clanton, who was for the time a few yards from his friends. Instantly he whipped the rifle up and fired.

"No luck" he grumbled. "My eyes are sore from the smoke. I can't half see."

Lee was not yet quite herself. The experience through which she had just pa.s.sed had shaken her nerves.

"Let's get out of here quick!" she cried.

"Take yore time. There's no hurry," Prince iterated. "They won't shoot again, now Jim's close to us."

The younger man grinned, as he had a habit of doing when the cards fell against him. "Where'd we go? Look, they've headed us off. We can't travel forward. We can't go back. I expect we'll have to file on the quarter-section where we are," he drawled.