There was a crackling of rifles, little curls of blue smoke rose in the pass, and bullets struck on the frozen earth, while two made the snow fly from bushes by the side of the road.
The sergeant raised his own rifle, longer of barrel than the average army weapon, and pulled the trigger.

He had aimed at Skelly, but the leader swerved, and a man behind him rolled off his horse.

The others, although slowing their speed a little, in order to be out of the range of that deadly rifle, continued to come.
The pursuit at first seemed futile to Dick, because they would soon descend into Townsville's valley, and the raiders could not follow them into the midst of an entire regiment.

But presently he saw their plan.
The pass now widened out with a few hundred yards of level space on either side of the road thickly covered with forest.

The branches of the trees were bare, but the undergrowth was so dense that horsemen could be hidden in it.