"It's the Indians after Smith!" she cried. "They promised me they wouldn't! Come--stand up here where you can see." McArthur took a place beside her on a knoll and watched the scene with horrified eyes. The Indians were grouped, with Bear Chief in advance. "They're shootin' into the stable! They've got him cornered," Susie explained excitedly. "No--look! He's comin' out! He's goin' to make a run for it! He's headed for the house. He can run like a scared wolf!" "Do they mean to kill him?" McArthur asked in a shocked voice. "Sure they mean to kill him. Do you think that's target practice? But look where the dust flies up--they're striking all around him--behind him--beside him--everywhere but in him! They're so anxious that they're shootin' wild. Runnin' Rabbit ought to get him--he's a good shot! He _did_! No, he stumbled. He's charmed--that Smith. He's got a strong medicine." "He's not too brave to run," said McArthur, but added: "I ran, myself, when they were after me." "He'd better run," Susie replied. "But he's after his gun; he means to fight." "He'll make it!" McArthur cried. Susie's voice suddenly rang out in an ascending, staccato-like shriek. "Oh! Oh! Oh! Mother, go back!" but the cracking rifles drowned Susie's shrill cry of entreaty. The Indian woman, with her hands high above her head, the palms open as if to stop the singing bullets, rushed from the house and stopped only when she had passed Smith and stood between him and danger. She stood erect, unflinching, and while the Indians' fire wavered Smith gained the doorway. Gasping for breath, his short upper lip drawn back from his protruding teeth in the snarl of a ferocious animal, he snatched a rifle from the deer-horn gun-rack above the door. The Indian woman was directly in line between him and his enemies. "Get out of the way!" he yelled, but she did not hear him. "The fool!" he snarled. "The fool! I'll have to crease her." He lifted his rifle and deliberately shot her in the fleshy part of her arm near the shoulder. She whirled with the shock of it, and dropped. XVIII A BAD HOMBRE The Indians ceased firing when the woman fell, and when Susie reached her mother Smith was helping her to her feet, and it was Smith who led her into the house and ripped her sleeve. It was only a painful flesh-wound, but if the bullet had gone a few inches higher it would have shattered her shoulder. It was a shot which told Smith that he had lost none of his accuracy of aim. He always carried a small roll of bandages in his hip-pocket, and with these he dressed the woman's arm with surprising skill. "When you needs a bandage, you generally needs it bad," he explained. He wondered if she knew that it was his shot which had struck her. If she did know, she said nothing, though her eyes, bright with pain, followed his every movement. "Looks like somebody's squeaked," Smith said meaningly to Susie.