McCullough and Lukins drew men from the cordon around the gambling-hall until the line was thinned and stretched as much as prudence allowed, covering only the more strategic positions, while the men taken from it were placed in an ambuscade at the rear of Quayle's hotel. Both leaders would have preferred to have placed their reception committee nearer the outskirts of the rambling town but, not knowing from which direction the attack would come and not being able to spare men enough for outposts around the town, they were forced to concentrate at the object of the attack. When night fell and darkness hid the movement they set the trap, gave strict orders for no one to approach the rear of the hotel during the dark hours, and waited expectantly. The first night passed in quiet and the following day found the cordon reenforced until it contained its original numbers. By nightfall of the second day Red, Johnny, and Waffles had cleared the parapet and made it useless during daylight, and as the moon increased in size and brightness the parapet steadily became a more perilous position at night for the defenders. All three marksmen, now ensconced within three hundred yards of the gambling-house and out of the line of sight of every lower loophole, had the range worked out to a foot. Red and Waffles had discarded their borrowed Sharp's and were now using their own familiar Winchesters, and it was certain death to any man who tried to shoot from Kane's roof on any side but the north one. Evening came and with it came a hair-brained attempt by Idaho and his irrepressibles to capture and use the stables. Despite McCullough's orders to the contrary the group of youngsters, elated by their success against Red Frank's, made the attempt as soon as darkness fell; and learned with cost that the stables were stacked decks. One man was killed and all the others wounded, most of them so badly as to remove them from the rôle of combatants; but one dogged, persistent, and vindictive unit of the foolish attack managed to set fire to the sun-dried structures before crawling away.