All on a sudden a wild cry went up in the corral. All on a sudden from north and south the assailants dashed forward with answering yell. In an instant the dark apertures flashed their lightning, and rifle and revolver-shots rang on the still night air. Harvey's Henry barked like a Gatling; Feeny's old Springfield banged like a six-pounder. Two of the assailants on the south side went down in the dust, face foremost, the others swerved, broke, and scurried for shelter. Pasqual Morales, leading his men close under the north wall, made a panther-like spring for the crest of the barley parapet, and was saved from instant death when he fell by being dragged feet foremost, with a Colt's forty-four tearing through his thigh. In vain Moreno's squad fired shot after shot through the wooden door; their bullets buried themselves deep in the improvised traverse but let no drop of blood, while two return shots scattered the attack with the splinters from the heavy panels. Pleading, raging, maddened, Morales learned that the dash had failed, and that two of his most daring men, the two Americanos who had ridden forward to personate prospectors and who had led the rush in the southern front, were knocked out of the fight. And then it was that the inhuman brute gave the order to resort to Indian methods, and even old Moreno begged and prayed and blasphemed all to no purpose. Furious at their repulse, the band were ready to obey their leader's maddest wish. The word was "Burn them out." Ned Harvey, crouching behind his barley-bags, felt his blood turn to ice water in his veins when, with exultant yells and taunts, the corral suddenly lighted up with a broad red glare. The match had been applied to the big hay-stack close to the brush-covered shed, close to the "leanto" under which so much inflammable rubbish was stored. It could be a question of only a few moments, then they, too, would be a mass of flames spreading rapidly westward. The stout adobe wall separating the ranch proper from the sheds would protect the occupants from direct contact with the flame, but what could save the roof? Stretching from wall to wall were the dry, resinous pine logs that formed the basis of the bulky structure; over these the lighter boards of pine; and over all, thickly piled, dry as bone and inflammable as tinder, heap on heap of brush. Once this was fairly ablaze the hapless occupants of the rooms beneath might as well be under the grating of some huge furnace.