“I hear it, too,” he said. “By Jove! the boys ar’ gittin’ the strings ready.”
The Indians had drawn a dark cord from their breasts. As it swung loose a little ball dangled from one end.
Down the canyon came the galloping of two horses.
When the game was in sight, Tom Terror shrunk instinctively against the wall of the canyon, and uttered a cry which he tried very hard to suppress.
Instead of two men, he saw a brace of youthful figures.
Although both were dressed in masculine apparel, the quick eye of the Gulch Tiger detected the dissimilarity of their features, and decided that one belonged to the gentler sex.
The hat worn by the person could not conceal a lot of rich auburn hair, and the garments, revealing a figure whose symmetry was faultless, served to confirm the tiger’s suspicions.
This individual’s companion was doubtless a boy.
He was strongly built, athletic, and youthfully handsome; there was spirit in his sloe-black eyes, energy and determination lurked at the corners of his mouth. He did not appear armed, but Tom could not see his right hand--there was something deadly in that.
A coil of black rope, like a lasso, hung at the left-hand side of his saddle.
“Thunder an’ shot! I’ve struck all ov ’em--the string boys an’ the chap I came back hyar to find. But, whar did he pick thet angel up? an’ who is she, anyhow?”
“Great heavens! I want the boy,” he cried. “If they give ’em the string I’ll get nothin’. Now I must prevent that. I--”
The watcher was interrupted by a half-smothered cry that came from the throat of the boy’s companion, as she,--if girl she really was--went backward.
Before Tom Terror could reach the spot the boy had checked the revolving ball, and the victim of the cord lay in his arms.
“Fiends, you shall pay for this!” he cried. “Ha! you would finish me, too!”
He threw up his right arm as he spoke, and the strange missiles that came from the shadows began to encircle it.
“Ha! ha!” rung out a fearless laugh as the arm was held up in the moonlight for a brief minute. “What a pitiful rope you use! Mine is twice as strong, and I use it, too. Why don’t your devilish leader come back, and give me a chance to use it on him?”
“He hez come back!” roared Tom at that moment. “I’m hyar, you little imp! I’ve got a warrant for you--the kind that we sometimes sarve on a knife.”