I saw the reason for this action at once; for to put an end to these men now would be the only sure way to make certain of an undisputed tenancy of the Lost Cabin. Indeed, their very flight in itself was enough to suggest not so much that they were afraid of us (for Pinkerton had given them the name of fearless scoundrels) as that they did not want an encounter yet—that their time had not yet come. But for Pinkerton, they might have followed up quietly the whole way to our goal. Thanks to him, we knew of them following. This, though not their time to fight, was our time. Suddenly I saw Donoghue, who was ahead, rear his horse clean back on to its haunches and next moment he was down on a knee beside it, and, just as I came level with him, his rifle spoke and in a voice scarcely human he cried, "Got ’im! Got ’im! The son of a dog!" And sure enough, there was a riderless horse among the six and a man all asprawl in the sunshine before us. But at that the flying men wheeled together and all five of them were on their feet before Apache Kid and I could draw rein. I heard a rifle snap again behind me, whether Apache Kid’s or Donoghue’s I did not know, and then, thought I, "If I stop here, I ’m done for; I ’ve got to keep going." The same thought must have been in Apache Kid’s mind for I heard the quick patter of his pony as it came level with me. He passed me and he and I—I now a length behind him—came level with the five men clustered there behind their horses and the horse of the fallen man, Apache crying to me: "Try a flying shot at them." He fired at that, and a yell rose in the group and I saw one man fall and then I up with my revolver and let fly at one of the fellows who was looking at me along his gun-barrel. And just at that moment it struck me, in the midst of all the fluttering excitement, that they let Apache Kid go by without a shot. But right on my shot my horse went down—his foot in a badger hole—and though afterwards I found that I had slain the horse that the fellow who was aiming at me was using as a bastion, I knew nothing of that then—for I smashed forward on my head. The last thing I heard was the snort of pain that my horse gave, and the first thing, when I awakened, that I was aware of was that I was lying on my back looking up at the glaring sky, a great throbbing going on in my head. My hands were tied together behind my back and my ankles also trussed up in a similar manner. I was in the wrong camp. I had fallen somehow into the hands of our enemies. *CHAPTER XI* _*How It Was Dark in the Sunlight*_