"Were there a great many of them?" I said eagerly, as I sat hoping the poor fellow did not give me the credit of forsaking him in a cowardly way. For answer he held up both hands with fingers and thumbs outspread; dropped them, and raised them once more; and would have kept on for long enough if I had not checked him. "You see," I said to Denham, "they are in great force up there." "Yes, and no wonder," was the reply, "for it's a very strong position. Now then, all here, and forward once more." The men ran back into the rallying-place as quickly as so many rabbits, mounted, and once more we were in full retreat, with Joeboy trotting beside my horse holding on to the stirrup-iron, while Denham kept coming to me, to talk. "Just to give you a few lessons in the art of war," he said, with his eyes twinkling and a laugh beginning to show at their corners. "There, you see we have done exactly what the Colonel wanted us to do: made a regular reconnaissance and drawn the enemy's fire, proving that he is holding the pass. What the old man will do now remains to be seen. He won't go up here with us to try and dislodge them, but will try, I expect, to lure them down into the open somewhere, so as to give us a chance at them." "They'll be too cunning," I said. "They fight only from behind stones, and in holes." "Yes, they're cunning enough," said Denham; "but, like all over-clever people, they make mistakes, or find others quite as cunning. Look here: you'll have to propose some dodge to the Colonel to coax them out to give us a chance." "I propose a plan to the Colonel?" "Yes. Why not?" said Denham, laughing. "You've begun your soldiering by teaching me, and--Oh!" He uttered a sharp cry, and clapped his right hand round to his back. "What is it?" I said excitedly. "Not hit?" "Yes, I've got it," he muttered. "Just look. It hurts horribly. I say, though, that's a good sign--eh?" The men halted involuntarily behind the stones, and Denham bravely kept his seat till all were under cover, when, refusing to dismount, he slipped off his bandolier and began to unbutton his tunic. "You had better let us help you down," I suggested. "No; I don't feel bad enough," he said through his teeth, speaking viciously as if in great pain. "I don't think I'm much hurt. See any blood?" "No," I replied as he threw off his tunic and laid it across his horse's neck. "Here, look. That's it. All! there it lies." For I had made a snatch at a long-shaped bullet, missed it twice, and then sat pointing out where it had fallen. Joeboy snatched it up and handed it to me. "Humph!" said Denham; "then it hasn't gone through me, or it would have fallen from my back." "Instead of your chest," I said. "It must have been partly spent with the long distance it travelled." "I wish it had been quite spent," said Denham through his teeth, "Oh, what a fuss I'm making about such a trifle! Nothing worse than having a stone thrown at one."