I could hear him, cursing and swearing and shouting to me to stop, but I had made up my mind I would not do that.
"I had got a brace of pistols with me, but I wasn't much of a shot.
I had, soon after I started, pulled them out of the holsters and shoved them into my belt in front of me; so that, as he came up, he shouldn't see my hand go down for them.

My hope was that he would ride straight up to the side of me, not knowing that I was armed; and that would give me a chance of suddenly letting fly at him.
"You would think the chance was a poor one; and that he would, to a certainty, shoot me down before he got up.

I did not much think he would do that, for I guessed that the scoundrel would do with me as he had in some other cases; namely, take me and carry me back to the house, and there either threaten to shoot me, or hang me up over a fire, or some such devilry, to make those inside give in.

I was determined this shouldn't be, and that if I could not shoot him I would be shot myself; for otherwise he would have got my father and mother, and it would have been three lives instead of one.
"Presently--crack!--came the sound of a pistol, and I heard the bullet whiz close by.

I expect that it was only to frighten me into stopping; but in a second or two he fired again, and the shot just grazed my shoulder, so he was in earnest that time.
"I bent low on my saddle, got a pistol out of my belt, and prepared.