They rallied under the inspiriting commands of their disguised white leader, and the fight that followed was sanguine enough to please even Pizen Kate, who climbed into a tree as soon as it began, and from that coign of vantage watched it throughout. Nomad and Buffalo Bill also climbed into trees and witnessed the battle between the Redskin Rovers and the white outlaws. For a little while it seemed that the Indians would break at once into flight, so desperate and deadly was the outlaw charge; but when the white leader put himself at their head and rallied them they made a stout stand. The tide of battle rolled out upon the mesa. Men and horses dropped under rifle fire, and under arrow and Indian lance. The combatants rode at each other, shooting, hacking with knives, stabbing with lances, and even seizing each other and rolling to the ground from their saddles, to continue there to the death this feud of hatred and revenge. Now and then Nomad yelled, he was so carried away by what he beheld; and Pizen Kate waved her shapeless hat and uttered voiceless cheers of approval when something of especial and spectacular interest was witnessed. But the fight did not last long. It was too fierce. Half the Indians, and as many of the outlaws, were soon down. The disguised leader of the Redskin Rovers fell while trying to hold his followers together. As he pitched stiffly out of his saddle and his mustang raced away, his followers broke into panicky flight, having no further stomach for such terrific fighting after the death of their desperate leader. They rode into the timbered hills, with the outlaws in hot pursuit; and the tide of blood rolled away out of sight. “Whoop! Whoroar!” yelled Pizen Kate, waving her hat. “Katie,” said Nomad, from his tree. “Can’t ye exercise a leetle discretion?” “Shet up, Nicholas!” she snapped. “Who aire you, ter be givin’ sech advice--you, who ain’t done nothin’ but yell yerself out of breath ever sense ther fightin’ started! Did ye think you wasn’t doin’ any hollerin’? If it hadn’t been that the fighters was makin’ sech a noise themselves they couldn’t helped hearin’ ye.” She slid ungracefully down from her tree, and Buffalo Bill and Nomad came down out of theirs. “We’ll be free from the pursuit of the Redskin Rovers now,” said the scout, with grim satisfaction. “We can thank those outlaws for that.” “An’ mebbe git killed by ther outlaws!” said Nomad. “I’d as soon die by an Injun’s arrer as by a white man’s bullet.” “Kin we go on to ther house now, do ye think?” asked Pizen Kate. “I dunno, though, if I kin stand it to cross that land where so many dead men aire layin’. Seems ter me it will be sorter harrowin’ to the feelin’s.” Nomad cackled. “Katie,” he said, “you’re an amusin’ cuss!” CHAPTER XVI. AT THE HOUSE ON THE MESA.