The whistle, which had obscured all sound as a cloud obscures the light, stopped suddenly in its roar, and the crowd at the hotel became calm. The superintendent, a wiry, gray-haired little man with decision in every movement, came running from his fortlike house on the hill and ordered all the women to take shelter there and take their children with them. So, while the rifles rattled and stray bullets began to knock mud from the walls, they went straggling up the hill, rich and poor, patrician and peon, while the air was rent by the wails of the half-Indian Mexican women who held themselves as good as captured by the _revoltosos_, concerning whose scruples they entertained no illusions. The women of the aristocracy bore themselves with more reserve, as befitting their birth and station, and the Americans who gathered about them with their protecting rifles pretended that all would be well; but in the mind of everyone was that same terror which found expression in the peon wail and, while scattered rebels and newly armed miners exchanged volleys on both sides of the town, the non-combatant Americans sought out every woman and rushed her up to the big house. There, if worst came to worst, they could make a last stand, or save them by a ransom. So, from the old woman who kept the candy stand in the plaza to the wives of the miners and the cherished womenfolk of the landowners, they were all crowded inside the broad halls of the big house; and seventy-odd Americans, armed with company rifles, paced nervously along the broad verandas or punched loopholes in the adobe walls that enclosed the summer-garden behind. Along with the rest went Hooker and Gracia, and, though her mother beckoned and her father frowned sternly, the wilful daughter of the Aragons did not offer to leave him as they scampered up the hill. In fact, she rode close beside him, spurring when he spurred and, finally, when the shower of stray bullets had passed, she led on around the house. "Won't you help me take my horse inside the walls?" she asked. Bud followed after her, circling the fortress whose blank adobe walls gave shelter to the screaming women, and she smiled upon him with the most engaging confidence. "I know you will have to go soon," she said, "and I suppose I've got to be shut in with those creatures, but we must be sure to save our horses. Some bullets might hit them, you know, and then we could not run away! "You remember your promise!" she reminded, as Bud gazed at her in astonishment. "Ah, yes, I knew you did--otherwise you would not have picked such a good horse for me. This roan is my father's best riding-horse. You must put yours inside the wall with him, and when the time is right we will get them and ride for the line." "What?" cried Hooker incredulously, "with the country full of rebels? They're liable to take the town in half an hour!"