“Hands up, I said!” shouted the scout. “The next bullet I send at you won’t go so wide.”
The man turned, at that, and lifted his arms.
“Who the blazes are you, anyhow?” he snarled.
“Buffalo Bill is the label I tote. What’s your own mark?”
“Well, Banks, you’re mine. Come this way till I strip off your guns.”
“What’s the matter with ye?” scowled Banks. “What have I ever done to you that you make a play like this?”
“Never you mind that for now. I feel hostile enough to put a bullet into you, right where you stand, on account of the way you treated my little Piute pard. Are you coming?”
“Your hand has the call,” grunted Banks. “Sure I’m coming.”
“I reckon I’ll have to plant a little lead around your feet so’st to make ’em more lively,” remarked Buffalo Bill. “Step off, high, wide, and handsome. Try it, now, before my patience begins to mill. You’re slower than molasses in zero weather.”
The man increased his pace. When he had come within a couple of yards of the scout, something happened which the scout had not been expecting.
“Up with _your_ hands, pilgrim! That’s my pard ye’re a-drawin’ a bead on.”
This raucous voice came from behind. A thrill ran through the scout’s nerves as he began to understand what Dell’s dumb-show meant.
She had been trying to tell him that another of the ruffians was coming.
The man had come, and was now in the scout’s rear.
Naturally, Buffalo Bill could not look behind him. To have done so would have been an invitation for the man in front to drop his hands, pull a revolver, and begin firing.
“That you, Hendricks?” the scout called, without making a move to lift his hands, and without taking his eyes off the fellow in front of him.
“Sure it’s me,” came the voice, “big as life an’ twicet as onnery. Did ye hear me when I told ye to put up yer hands?”
“I heard you,” the scout answered, “and I’m not going to do it. The click of a trigger in your hands will be my signal to throw lead into Banks.”
“I ain’t a-goin’ to have no foolin’,” snorted Hendricks. “If you want to drop yer guns an’ skin out, well an’ good; Banks an’ me won’t object. You’ll find it a heap healthier, I reckon, than to try to make front on the pair of us. We ain’t got no crow to pick with _you_, and you hadn’t ort to force our hands. Will ye git?”