Mr. Masterson and Mr. Dixon carefully added the rescue party to that one whom they came to save. “What did I tell you!” exulted Mr. Masterson, as he clicked in a fresh cartridge and closed the breech of his Sharp’s. “Which you called the turn!” said Mr. Dixon, who having been three years from Boston, now spoke with a Brazos accent. Again the mysterious bugle sang the tan-ta-ra-ra of a rally. The sound came from down in the fringe of cottonwoods; the bugler, whoever he might be, had charged each time with the others. As the bugle sounded, a big Osage, one of the pacific audience on the hill, started to ride over to the warriors forming their third line of battle beneath the trees. Doubtless he had thought of a word of advice to give his fighting friends, whereof they stood in need. He was gravely walking his pony across the space that lay between the red audience and the red actors in this drama of blood. “It would be a good thing,” remarked Mr. Wright, who was the Ulysses of the ’Dobe Walls, “to break that Osage of his conversation habit right here. And yet, it won’t do to hurt him and bring the Osages upon us. Can’t you down his pony, Bat, and send him back on foot? You’re the best shot; and it would be a warning to the others, smoking on the hill, that we won’t tolerate foreign interference in this fight.” Mr. Masterson notched up his hindsight for seven hundred yards. The rifle flashed; the Osage pony made a forward jump and fell. At that, the owner picked himself up, rearranged his blanket, and soberly strutted back to his tribal friends whom he had quitted. His said friends took their pipes out of their mouths and laughed widely over his discomfiture. They were pleased thus to have his officiousness rebuked. He should have kept his nose out of this scrimmage, which was not an Osage scrimmage. The bugle called down the third charge. There came the low, thick patter of the hoofs, and soon the hail of steel-tipped arrows set in. The arrows broke against the mud walls of the building, and fell to the harmless ground. One glanced through an opening, lifting the long locks of a defender. “Tryin’ to cut your ha’r, Jim,” jested his window mate. “Don’t blame ’em; it needs trimmin’.” “All the same,” retorted the one of the locks, “I nacherally trimmed the barber a lot;” and he pointed to a savage who was twisting out his life on the grass. The arrow grazed Inez as it came clattering into her covert of stools and tables. Inez being dislodged, ran screaming to Mr. Masterson for protection. She knocked against that excellent marksman in time to spoil his shot, and save the life of a Kiowa on whose destruction he had set his heart. Mr. Masterson, a bit disgusted with the timorous Inez, picked her up and put her in a great empty bin, wherein shelled corn had been kept. Inez became instantly engaged with the stray kernels which she found in the bottom, fumbling them and tasting them with her lips, half guessing they were good to eat.