He rushed forward. The others all at his side. The Italians stood paralyzed at the effect of the revolver. As b.u.t.tons led the charge they fell back a few paces.

"Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!" burst b.u.t.tons, the Senator, and d.i.c.k, as each s.n.a.t.c.hed a rifle from the prostrate bandits, and hastily tore the cartridge-boxes from them.

"Load up! load up! Doctor!" cried b.u.t.tons.

"All right,"' said the Doctor, who never changed in his cool self-possession.

But now the Italians with curses and screams came back to the attack. It is absolutely stupefying to think how few shots. .h.i.t the mark in the excitement of a fight. Here were a number of men firing from a distance of hardly more than forty paces, and not one took effect.

The next moment the whole crowd were upon them. b.u.t.tons s.n.a.t.c.hed Mr.

Figgs's razor from his grasp and used it vigorously. d.i.c.k plied his bowie-knife. The Senator wielded a clubbed rifle on high as though it were a wand, and dealt the blows of a giant upon the heads of his a.s.sailants. All the Italians were physically their inferiors--small, puny men. Mr. Figgs made a wild dash at the first man he saw and seized his rifle. The fight was spirited.

The rascally brigands were nearly three times as numerous, but the Americans surpa.s.sed them in bodily strength and spirit.

Crash--crash--fell the Senator's rifle, and down went two men. His strength was enormous--absorbed as it had been from the granite cliffs of the old Granite State. Two brawny fellows seized him from behind. A thrust of his elbow laid one low. b.u.t.tons slashed the wrist of the other. A fellow threw himself on b.u.t.tons. d.i.c.k's bowie-knife laid open his arm and thigh. The next moment d.i.c.k went down beneath the blows of several Italians. But b.u.t.tons rushed with his razor to rescue d.i.c.k. Three men glared at him with uplifted weapons. Down came the Senator's clubbed rifle like an avalanche, sweeping their weapons over the cliff. They turned simultaneously on the Senator, and grasped him in a threefold embrace. b.u.t.tons's razor again drank blood. Two turned upon him. Bang! went the Doctor's pistol, sending one of them shrieking to the ground. Bang! Once more, and a fellow who had nearly overpowered the breathless Figgs staggered back. d.i.c.k was writhing on the ground beneath the weight of a dead man and a fellow who was trying to suffocate him. b.u.t.tons was being throttled by three others who held him powerless, his razor being broken. A crack on Mr. Figgs's head laid him low. The Doctor stood off at a little distance hastily reloading.

The Senator alone was free; but six fierce fellows a.s.sailed him. It was now as in the old Homeric days, when the heroic soul, sustained by iron nerve and mighty muscle, came out particularly strong in the hour of conflict.

The Senator's form towered up like one of his own granite cliffs in the storm--as rugged, as unconquerable. His blood was up! The same blood it was that coursed through the veins of Cromwell's grim old "Ironsides," and afterward animated those st.u.r.dy backwoods-men who had planted themselves in American forests, and beaten back wild beasts and howling savages.

b.u.t.tons, prostrate on the ground, looked up, gasping through the smoke and dust, as he struggled with his a.s.sailants. He saw the Senator, his hair bristling out straight, his teeth set, his eye on fire, his whole expression sublimed by the ardor of battle. His clothes were torn to shreds; his coat was gone, his hat nowhere, his hands and face were covered with clots of blood and streaks from mud, dust, smoke, and powder.

The eye of b.u.t.tons took in all this in one glance. The next instant, with a wide sweep of his clubbed rifle the Senator put forth all his gigantic strength in one tremendous effort. The shock was irresistible. Down went the six bandits as though a cannon-ball had struck them. The Senator leaped away to relieve d.i.c.k, and seizing his a.s.sailant by neck and heel, flung him over the cliff. Then tearing away another from Mr. Figgs's prostrate and almost senseless form, he rushed back upon the six men whom he had just levelled to the earth.

d.i.c.k sprang to the relief of b.u.t.tons, who was at his last extremity.

But the Doctor was before him, as cool as ever. He grasped one fellow by the throat--a favorite trick of the Doctor's, in which his anatomical knowledge came very finely into play:

"Off!" rang the Doctor's voice.

The fellow gasped a curse. The next instant a roar burst through the air, and the wretch fell heavily forward, shot through the head, while his brains were splattered over the face of b.u.t.tons. The Doctor with a blow of his fist sent the other fellow reeling over.

b.u.t.tons sprang up gasping. The Italians were falling back. He called to the Senator. That man of might came up. Thank G.o.d they were all alive! Bruised, and wounded, and panting--but alive.

The scowling bandits drew off, leaving seven of their number on the road _hors de combat_. Some of the retreating ones had been badly treated, and limped and staggered. The Club proceeded to load their rifles.

The Doctor stepped forward. Deliberately aiming he fired his revolver five times in rapid succession. Before he had time to load again the bandits had darted into the woods.

"Every one of those bullets _hit_," said the Doctor with unusual emphasis.

"We must get under cover at once," said d.i.c.k. "They'll be back shortly with others!"

"Then we must fortify our position," said the Senator, "and wait for relief. As we were, though, it was lucky they tried a hand-to-hand fight first. This hill shelters us on one side. There are so many trees that they can't roll stones down, nor can they shoot us. We'll fix a barricade in front with our baggage. We'll have to fight behind a barricade this time; though, by the Eternal! I wish it were hand-to-hand again, for I don't remember of ever having had such a glorious time in all my born days!"

The Senator pa.s.sed his hand over his gory brow, and walked to the coach.

"Where's Pietro?"

"Pietro! _Pietro_!"

No answer.

"PI-E-TRO!"

Still no answer.

"Pietro!" cried d.i.c.k, "if you don't come here I'll blow your--"

"Oh! is it you, Signori?" exclaimed Pietro's voice; and that worthy appeared among the trees a little way up the hill. He was deadly pale, and trembled so much that he could scarcely speak.

"Look here!" cried b.u.t.tons; "we are going to barricade ourselves."

"Barricade!"

"We can not carry our baggage away, and we are not going to leave it behind. We expect to have another battle."

Pietro's face grew livid.

"You can stay and help us if you wish."

Pietro's teeth chattered.

"Or you can help us far more, by running to the nearest town and letting the authorities know."

"Oh, Signore, trust me! I go."

"Make haste, then, or you may find us all murdered, and then how will you get your fares--eh?"

"I go--I go; I will run all the way!"

"Won't you take a gun to defend yourself with?"

"Oh no!" cried Pietro, with horror. "No, no!"

In a few minutes he had vanished among the thick woods.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Pietro.]

After stripping the prostrate Italians the travellers found themselves in possession of seven rifles, with cartridges, and some other useful articles. Four of these men were stone-dead. They pulled their bodies in front of their place of shelter. The wounded men they drew inside, and the Doctor at once attended to them, while the others were strengthening the barricade.

"I don't like putting these here," said the Senator; "but it'll likely frighten the brigands, or make them delicate about firing at us. That's my idee."

The horses were secured fast. Then the baggage was piled all around, and made an excellent barricade. With this and the captured rifles they felt themselves able to encounter a small regiment.

"Now let them come on," cried the Senator, "just as soon as they d.a.m.n please! We'll try first the European system of barricades; and if that don't work, then we can fall back, on the real original, national, patriotic, independent, manly, native American, true-blue, and altogether heroic style!"

"What is that?"