The North Midians were advancing cautiously, halting occasionally for brief, whispered conferences. Presently one of them spoke, addressing the three. "Who are you?" he demanded. "What do you in the land of Midian?"
"Can you understand him?" asked Smith, over his shoulder.
"Yes," replied both girls simultaneously.
"He speaks the same language as Jezebel's people," explained Lady Barbara. "He wants to know who we are and what we are doing here."
"You talk to him, Lady Barbara," said Smith.
The English girl stepped forward. "We are strangers in Midian," she said. "We are lost. All we wish is to get out of your country."
"There is no way out of Midian," replied the man. "You have killed a kid belonging to Eshbaal. For that you must be punished. You must come with us."
"We were starving," explained Lady Barbara. "If we could pay for the kid we would gladly do so. Let us go in peace."
The Midians held another whispered conference, after which their spokesman addressed the three again. "You must come with us," he said, "the women at least. If the man will go away we will not harm you, we do not want him; we want the women."
"What did he say?" demanded Smith, and when Lady Barbara had interpreted he shook his head. "Tell them no," he directed. "Also tell them that if they molest us I shall have to kill them."
When the girls delivered this ultimatum to the Midians they laughed. "What can one man do against twenty?" demanded their leader, then he advanced followed by his retainers. They were brandishing their clubs now, and some of them raised their voices in a savage war cry.
"You will have to shoot," said Lady Barbara. "There are at least twenty. You cannot miss them all."
"You flatter me," said Smith, as he raised his .32 and levelled it at the advancing Midians.
"Go back!" shouted Jezebel, "or you will be killed," but the attackers only came forward the faster.
Then Smith fired. At the sharp crack of the pistol the Midians halted, surprised; but no one fell. Instead, the leader hurled his club, quickly and accurately, just as Smith was about to fire again. He dodged; but the missile struck his pistol hand a glancing blow, sending the weapon flying—then the North Midians were upon them.
Tarzan of the Apes had made a kill. It was only a small rodent, but it would satisfy his hunger until the morrow. Darkness had fallen shortly after he had discovered the spoor of the missing American, and he was forced to abandon the search until daylight came again. The first sign of the spoor had been very faint—just the slightest imprint of one corner of a boot heel, but that had been enough for the ape-man. Clinging to a bush nearby was the scarcely perceptible scent spoor of a white man, which Tarzan might have followed even after dark; but it would have been a slow and arduous method of tracking which the ape-man did not consider the circumstances warranted. Therefore he made his kill, ate, and curled up in a patch of tall grass to sleep.
Wild beasts may not sleep with one eye open, but often it seems that they sleep with both ears cocked. The ordinary night sounds go unnoticed, while a lesser sound, portending danger or suggesting the unfamiliar, may awaken them on the instant. It was a sound falling in the latter category that awoke Tarzan shortly after midnight.
He raised his head and listened, then he lowered it and placed an ear against the ground. "Horses and men," he soliloquized as he rose to his feet. Standing erect, his great chest rising and falling to his breathing, he listened intently. His sensitive nostrils, seeking to confirm the testimony of his ears, dilated to receive and classify the messages that Usha, the wind, bore to them. They caught the scent of Tongani, the baboon, so strong as almost to negate the others. Tenuous, from a great distance came the scent of Sabor, the lioness, and the sweet, heavy stench of Tantor, the elephant. One by one the ape-man read these invisible messages brought by Usha, the wind; but only those interested him that spoke of horses and men.
Why did horses and men move through the night? Who and what were the men? He scarcely needed to ask himself that latter question, and only the first one interested him.
It is the business of beasts and of men to know what their enemies do. Tarzan stretched his great muscles lazily and moved down the slope of the foot hills in the direction from which had come the evidence that his enemies were afoot.
The "Gunner" stumbled along in the darkness. Never in his twenty odd years of life had he even approximated such utter physical exhaustion. Each step he was sure must be his last. He had long since become too tired even to curse his captors as he plodded on, now almost numb to any sensation, his mind a chaos of dull misery.
But even endless journeys must ultimately end; and at last the cavalcade turned into the gateway of the village of Dominic Capietro, the raider; and the "Gunner" was escorted to a hut where he slumped to the hard earth floor after his bonds had been removed, positive that he would never rise again.
He was asleep when they brought him food; but aroused himself long enough to eat, for his hunger was fully as great as his fatigue. Then he stretched out again and slept, while a tired and disgustedshiftanodded drowsily on guard outside the entrance to the hut.
Tarzan had come down to the cliff above the village as the raiders were filing through the gateway. A full moon cast her revealing beams upon the scene, lighting the figures of horses and men. The ape-man recognized Capietro and Stabutch, he saw Ogonyo, the headman of the safari of the young American geologist; and he saw the "Gunner" stumbling painfully along in bonds.
The ape-man was an interested spectator of all that transpired in the village below. He noted particularly the location of the hut into which the white prisoner had been thrust. He watched the preparation of food, and he noted the great quantities of liquor that Capietro and Stabutch consumed while waiting for the midnight supper being prepared by slaves. The more they drank the better pleased was Tarzan.
As he watched them, he wondered how supposedly rational creatures could consider the appellation beast a term of reproach andmanone of glorification. The beasts, as he knew, held an opposite conception of the relative virtues of these two orders, although they were ignorant of most of man's asininities and degradations, their minds being far too pure to understand them.
Waiting with the patience of the unspoiled primitive nervous system, Tarzan watched from the cliff top until the village below seemed to have settled down for the night. He saw the sentries in the banquette inside the palisade, but he did not see the guard squatting in the shadow of the hut where the "Gunner" lay in heavy slumber.
Satisfied, the ape-man rose and moved along the cliff until he was beyond the village; and there, where the escarpment was less precipitous, he made his way to its base. Noiselessly and cautiously he crept to the palisade at a point that was hidden from the view of the sentries. The moon shone full upon him, but the opposite side of the palisade he knew must be in dense shadow. There he listened for a moment to assure himself that his approach had aroused no suspicion. He wished that he might see the sentries at the gate, for when he topped the palisade he would be in full view for an instant. When last he had seen them they had been squatting upon the banquette, their backs to the palisade, and apparently upon the verge of sleep. Would they remain thus?
Here, however, was a chance he must take, and so he gave the matter little thought and few regrets. What was, was; and if he could not change it he must ignore it; and so, leaping lightly upward, he seized the top of the palisade and drew himself up and over. Only a glance he threw in the direction of the sentries as he topped the barrier, a glance that told him they had not moved since he had last looked.
In the shadow of the palisade he paused to look about. There was nothing to cause him apprehension; and so he moved quickly, keeping ever in the shadows where he could, toward the hut where he expected to find the young white man. It was hidden from his view by another hut which he approached and had circled when he saw the figure of the guard sitting by the doorway, his rifle across his knees.
This was a contingency the ape-man had not anticipated, and it caused a change in his immediate plans. He drew back out of sight behind the hut he had been circling, lay down flat upon the ground, and then crawled forward again until his head protruded beyond the hut far enough to permit one eye to watch the unconscious guard. Here he lay waiting—a human beast watching its quarry.
For a long time he lay thus trusting to his knowledge of men that the moment for which he waited would arrive. Presently the chin of theshiftadropped to his chest; but immediately it snapped back again, erect. Then the fellow changed his position. He sat upon the ground, his legs stretched before him, and leaned his back against the hut. His rifle was still across his knees. It was a dangerous position for a man who would remain awake.
After a while his head rolled to one side. Tarzan watched him closely, as a cat watches a mouse. The head remained in the position to which it had rolled, the chin dropped, and the mouth gaped; the tempo of the breathing changed, denoting sleep.
Tarzan rose silently to his feet and as silently crept across the intervening space to the side of the unconscious man. There must be no outcry, no scuffle.
As strikes Histah, the snake, so struck Tarzan of the Apes. There was only the sound of parting vertebrae as the neck broke in the grip of those thews of steel.
The rifle Tarzan laid upon the ground; then he raised the corpse in his arms and bore it into the darkness of the hut's interior. Here he groped for a moment until he had located the body of the sleeping white, and knelt beside him. Cautiously he shook him, one hand ready to muffle any outcry the man might make, but the "Gunner" did not awaken. Tarzan shook him again more roughly and yet without results, then he slapped him heavily across the face.
The "Gunner" stirred. "Geeze," he muttered "can't you let a guy sleep? Didn't I tell you you'd get your ransom, you damn wop?"
Tarzan permitted a faint smile to touch his lips. "Wake up," he whispered. "Make no noise. I have come to take you away?"
"Who are you?"
"Tarzan of the Apes."
"Geeze!" The "Gunner" sat up.
"Make no noise," cautioned the ape-man once more.
"Sure," whispered Danny as he raised himself stiffly to his feet.
"Follow me," said Tarzan, "and no matter what happens stay very close to me. I am going to toss you to the top of the palisade. Try not to make any noise as you climb over, and be careful when you drop to the ground on the other side to alight with your knees flexed—it is a long drop."
"You say you're going to toss me to the top of the palisade, guy?"
"Yes."
"Do you know what I weigh?"
"No, and I don't care. Keep still and follow me. Don't stumble over this body." Tarzan paused in the entrance and looked about; then he passed out, with the "Gunner" at his heels, and crossed quickly to the palisade. Even if they discovered him now he still had time to accomplish what he had set out to do, before they could interfere, unless the sentries, firing on them, chanced to make a hit; but on that score he felt little apprehension.
As they came to the palisade the "Gunner" glanced up, and his skepticism increased—a fat chance any guy would have to toss his one hundred and eighty pounds to the top of that!
The ape-man seized him by the collar and the seat of his breeches. "Catch the top!" he whispered. Then he swung the "Gunner" backward as though he had been a fifty pound sack of meal, surged forward and upward; and in the same second Danny Patrick's out-stretched fingers clutched the top of the palisade.
"Geeze," he muttered, "if I'd missed I'd of gone clean over."
Catlike, the ape-man ran up the barrier and dropped to the ground on the outside almost at the instant that the "Gunner" alighted, and without a word started toward the cliff, where once again he had to assist the other to reach the summit.
Danny "Gunner" Patrick was speechless, partly from shortness of breath following his exertions, but more, by far, from astonishment. Here was a guy! In all his experience of brawny men, and it had been considerable, he had never met, nor expected to meet, such a one as this.
"I have located the spoor of your friend," said Tarzan.
"The what?" asked the "Gunner." "Is he dead?"
"His tracks," explained the ape-man, who was still leading the way up the slope toward the higher mountains.
"I gotcha," said the "Gunner." "But you ain't seen him?"
"No, it was too dark to follow him when I found them. We will do so in the morning."
"If I can walk," said the "Gunner."
"What's the matter with you?" demanded Tarzan. "Injured?"
"I ain't got no legs from the knees down," replied Danny. "I walked my lousy dogs off yesterday."
"I'll carry you," suggested Tarzan.
"Nix!" exclaimed Danny. "I can crawl, but I'll be damned if I'll let any guy carry me."
"It will be a hard trip if you're exhausted now," the ape-man told him. "I could leave you somewhere near here and pick you up after I find your friend."
"Nothing doing. I'm going to look for old Smithy if I wear 'em off to the hips."
"I could probably travel faster alone," suggested Tarzan.
"Go ahead," agreed the "Gunner" cheerfully. "I'll tail along behind you."
"And get lost."
"Let me come along, mister. I'm worried about that crazy nut."
"All right. It won't make much difference anyway. He may be a little hungrier when we find him, but he can't starve to death in a couple of days."
"Say," exclaimed Danny, "how come you knew them Wops had taken me for a ride?"
"I thought you walked."
"Well, what's the difference? How did you know I was in that lousy burgh of theirs?"
"I was on the cliff when they brought you in. I waited until they were asleep. I am not ready to deal with them yet."
"What you goin' to do to them?"
Tarzan shrugged but made no reply; and for a long time they walked on in silence through the night, the ape-man timing his speed to the physical condition of his companion, whose nerve he was constrained to admire, though his endurance and knowledge he viewed with contempt.
Far up in the hills, where he had bedded down earlier in the night, Tarzan halted and told "Gunner" to get what rest he could before dawn.
"Geeze, them's the pleasantest words I've heard for years," sighed Danny, as he lay down in the high grass. "You may think you've seen a guy pound his ear, but you ain't seen nothing. Watch me," and he was asleep almost before the words had left his mouth.
Tarzan lay down at a little distance; and he, too, was soon asleep, but at the first suggestion of dawn he was up. He saw that his companion still slept, and then he slipped silently away toward a water hole he had discovered the previous day in a rocky ravine near the cliff where he had met the tribe of Zugash, the tongani.
He kept well down the slope of the foot hills, for with the coming of dawn the wind had changed, and he wished to come up-wind toward the water hole. He moved as silently as the disappearing shadows of the retreating night, his nostrils quivering to catch each vagrant scent borne upon the bosom of the early morning breeze.
There was deep mud at one edge of the water hole, where the earth had been trampled by the feet of drinking beasts; and near here he found that which he sought, the sticky sweetness of whose scent had been carried to his nostrils by Usha.
Low trees grew in the bottom of the ravine and much underbrush, for here the earth held its moisture longer than on the ridges that were more exposed to Kudu's merciless rays. It was a lovely sylvan glade, nor did its beauties escape the appreciative eyes of the ape-man, though the lure of the glade lay not this morning in its aesthetic charms, but rather in the fact that it harbored Horta, the boar.
Silently to the edge of the underbrush came the ape-man as Horta came down to the pool to drink. Upon the opposite side stood Tarzan, his bow and arrows ready in his hands; but the high brush precluded a fair shot, and so the hunter stepped out in full view of the boar. So quickly he moved that his arrow sped as Horta wheeled to run, catching the boar in the side behind the left shoulder—a vital spot.
With a snort of rage Horta turned back and charged. Straight through the pool he came for Tarzan; and as he came three more arrows, shot with unbelievable accuracy and celerity, buried themselves deep in the breast of the great beast. Bloody foam flecked his jowls and his flashing tusks, fires of hate shot from his wicked little eyes as he sought to reach the author of his hurts and wreak his vengeance before he died.
Discarding his bow the ape-man met the mad charge of Horta with his spear, for there was no chance to elude the swift rush of that great body, hemmed, as he was, by the thick growth of underbrush. His feet braced, he dropped the point of his weapon the instant Horta was within its range, that he might have no opportunity to dodge it or strike it aside with his tusks. Straight through the great chest it drove, deep into the savage heart, yet the beast still strove to reach the man-thing that held it off with a strength almost equal to its own.
But already as good as dead on his feet was Horta, the boar. His brief, savage struggles ended; and he dropped in the shallow water at the edge of the pool. Then the ape-man placed a foot upon his vanquished foe and screamed forth the hideous challenge of his tribe.
The "Gunner" sat suddenly erect, awakened out of a sound sleep. "Geeze!" he exclaimed. "What was that?" Receiving no answer he looked about. "Wouldn't that eat you?" he murmured. "He's went. I wonder has he run out on me? He didn't seem like that kind of a guy. But you can't never tell—I've had pals to double-cross me before this."
In the village of Capietro a dozing sentry snapped suddenly alert, while his companion half rose to his feet. "What was that?" demanded one.
"A hairy one has made a kill," said the other.
Sheeta, the panther, down wind, stalking both the man and the boar, stopped in his tracks; then he turned aside and loped away in easy graceful bounds; but he had not gone far before he stopped again and raised his nose up-wind. Again the scent of man; but this time a different man, nor was there any sign of the feared thunder stick that usually accompanied the scent spoor of the tarmangani. Belly low, Sheeta moved slowly up the slope toward Danny "Gunner" Patrick.
"What to do?" mused the "Gunner." "Geeze, I'm hungry! Should I wait for him or should I go on? On, where? I sure got myself in a jam all right. Where do I go? How do I eat? Hell!"
He arose and moved about, feeling out his muscles. They were lame and sore, but he realized that he was much rested. Then he scanned the distances for a sight of Tarzan, and instead, saw Sheeta, the panther, a few hundred yards away.
Danny Patrick, hoodlum, racketeer, gangster, gunman, killer, trembled in terror. Cold sweat burst from every pore, and he could feel the hair rise on his scalp. He felt a mad impulse to run; but, fortunately for Danny, his legs refused to move. He was literally, in the vernacular to which he was accustomed, scared stiff. The "Gunner," without a gun, was a very different man.
The panther had stopped and was surveying him. Caution and an hereditary fear of man gave the great cat pause; but he was angry because he had been frightened from his prey after hunting futilely all night, and he was very, very hungry. He growled, his face wrinkled in a hideous snarl; and Danny felt his knees giving beneath him.
Then, beyond the panther, he saw the high grass moving to the approach of another animal, which the "Gunner" promptly assumed was the beast's mate. There was just a single, narrow strip of this high grass; and when the animal had crossed it he, too, would see Danny, who was confident that this would spell the end. One of them might hesitate to attack a man—he didn't know—but he was sure that two would not.
He dropped to his knees and did something that he had not done for many years—he prayed. And then the grasses parted; and Tarzan of the Apes stepped into view, the carcass of a boar upon one broad shoulder. Instantly the ape-man took in the scene that his nostrils had already prepared him for.
Dropping the carcass of Horta he voiced a sudden, ferocious growl that startled Sheeta no more than it did Danny Patrick. The cat wheeled, instantly on the defensive. Tarzan charged, growls rumbling from his throat; and Sheeta did exactly what he had assumed he would do—turned and fled. Then Tarzan picked up the carcass of Horta and came up the slope to Danny, who knelt open-mouthed and petrified.
"What are you kneeling for?" asked the ape-man.
"I was just tying my boot lace," explained the "Gunner."
"Here is breakfast," said Tarzan, dropping the boar to the ground. "Help yourself."
"That sure looks good to me," said Danny. "I could eat it raw."
"That is fine," said Tarzan; and, squatting, he cut two strips from one of the hams. "Here," he said, offering one to the "Gunner."
"Quit your kidding," remonstrated the latter.
Tarzan eyed him questioningly, at the same time tearing off a mouthful of the meat with his strong teeth. "Horta is a little bit tough," he remarked, "but he is the best I could do without losing a great deal of time. Why don't you eat? I thought you were hungry."
"I got to cook mine," said the "Gunner."
"But you said you could eat it raw," the ape-man reminded him.
"That's just a saying," explained the "Gunner." "I might at that, but I ain't never tried it."
"Make a fire, then; and cook yours," said Tarzan.
"Say," remarked Danny a few minutes later as he squatted before his fire grilling his meat, "did you hear that noise a little while ago?"
"What was it like?"
"I never heard nothing like it but once before—say I just took a tumble to myself! That was you killin' the pig. I heard you yell like that the night you killed the lion in our camp."
"We will be going as soon as you finish your meat," said Tarzan. He was hacking off several pieces, half of which he handed to the "Gunner" while he dropped the balance into his quiver. "Take these," he said. "You may get hungry before we can make another kill." Then he scraped a hole in the loose earth and buried the remainder of the carcass.
"What you doin' that for?" asked the "Gunner." "Afraid it will smell?"
"We may come back this way," explained Tarzan. "If we do Horta will be less tough."
The "Gunner" made no comment; but he assured himself, mentally, that he "wasn't no dog," to bury his meat and then dig it up again after it had rotted. The idea almost made him sick.
Tarzan quickly picked up the trail of Lafayette Smith and followed it easily, though the "Gunner" saw nothing to indicate that human foot had ever trod these hills.
"I don't see nothing," he said.
"I have noticed that," returned Tarzan.
"That," thought Danny Patrick, "sounds like a dirty crack;" but he said nothing.
"A lion picked up his trail here," said the ape-man.
"You ain't spoofin' me are you?" demanded Danny. "There ain't no sign of nothin' on this ground."
"Nothing that you can see perhaps," replied Tarzan; "but then, though you may not know it, you so-called civilized men are almost blind and quite stone deaf."
Soon they came to the fissure, and here Tarzan saw that the man and the lion had both gone in, the lion following the man, and that only the lion had come out.
"That looks tough for old Smithy, doesn't it?" said the "Gunner" when Tarzan had explained the story of the spoor.
"It may," replied the ape-man. "I'll go on in and look for him. You can wait here or follow. You can't get lost if you stay inside this crack."
"Go ahead," said Danny. "I'll follow."
The fissure was much longer than Tarzan had imagined; but some distance from the entrance he discovered evidence that the lion had not attacked Smith, for he could see where Numa had turned about and that the man had continued on. Some recent scars on the sides of the fissure told him the rest of the story quite accurately.
"It's fortunate he didn't hit Numa," soliloquized the ape-man.
At the end of the fissure Tarzan had some difficulty in wriggling through the aperture that opened into the valley of the land of Midian; but once through he picked up the trail of Smith again and followed it down toward the lake, while Danny, far behind him, stumbled wearily along the rough floor of the fissure.
He walked rapidly for the spoor was plain. When he came to the shore of Chinnereth he discovered Smith's tracks intermingled with those of a woman wearing well worn European boots and another shod with sandals.
When he had first entered the valley he had seen the village of the South Midians in the distance and now he drew the false conclusion that Smith had discovered a friendly people and other whites and that he was in no danger.
His curiosity piqued by the mystery of this hidden valley, the ape-man determined to visit the village before continuing on Smith's trail. Time had never entered greatly into his calculations, trained, as he had been, by savage apes to whom time meant less than nothing; but to investigate and to know every detail of his wilderness world was as much a part of the man as is his religion to a priest.
And so he continued rapidly on toward the distant village while Danny Patrick still crawled and stumbled slowly along the rocky floor of the fissure.
Danny was tired. Momentarily he expected to meet Tarzan returning either with Smith or with word of his death; so he stopped often to rest, with the result that when he had reached the end of the fissure and crawled through to behold the mystifying sight of a strange valley spread before him, Tarzan was already out of sight.
"Geeze!" exclaimed the "Gunner." "Who would have thought that hole led into a place like this? I wonder which way that Tarzan guy went?"
This thought occupied the "Gunner" for a few minutes. He examined the ground as he had seen Tarzan do, mistook a few spots where some little rodent had scratched up the earth, or taken a dust bath, for the footprints of a man, and set forth in the wrong direction.
The stocky, blond warriors of Elija, the son of Noah, quickly surrounded and seized Lafayette Smith and his two companions. Elija picked up Smith's pistol and examined it with interest; then he dropped it into a goat skin pouch that was suspended from the girdle that held his single garment about him.
"This one," said Eshbaal, pointing to Jezebel, "is mine."
"Why?" asked Elija, the son of Noah.
"I saw her first," replied Eshbaal.
"Did you hear what he said?" demanded Jezebel of Lady Barbara.
The English girl nodded apathetically. Her brain was numb with the disappointment and the horror of the situation, for in some respects their fate might be worse with these men than with those of South Midian. These were lusty, primitive warriors, not half-witted creatures whose natural passions had been weakened by generations of hereditary disease of nerve and brain.
"He wants me," said Jezebel. "Is he not beautiful?"
Lady Barbara turned upon the girl almost angrily, and then suddenly she remembered that Jezebel was little more than a child in experience and that she had no conception of the fate that might await her at the hands of the North Midians.
In their narrow religious fanaticism the South Midians denied even the most obvious phases of procreation. The subject was absolutely taboo and so hideous had ages of training and custom made it appear to them that mothers often killed their first born rather than exhibit these badges of sin.
"Poor little Jezebel," said Lady Barbara.
"What do you mean, Barbara?" asked the girl. "Are you not happy that the beautiful man wants me?"
"Listen, Jezebel," said Lady Barbara. "You know I am your friend, do you not?"
"My only friend," replied the girl. "The only person I ever loved."
"Then believe me when I say that you must kill yourself, as I shall kill myself, if we are unable to escape from these creatures."
"Why?" demanded Jezebel. "Are they not more beautiful than the South Midians?"
"Forget their fatal beauty," replied Lady Barbara, "but never forget what I have told you."
"Now I am afraid," said Jezebel.
"Thank God for that," exclaimed the English girl.
The North Midians marched loosely and without discipline. They seemed a garrulous race, and their arguments and speeches were numerous and lengthy. Sometimes, so intent did they become on some point at argument, or in listening to a long winded oration by one of their fellows, that they quite forgot their prisoners, who were sometimes amongst them, sometimes in advance and once behind them.
It was what Lady Barbara had been awaiting and what she had to some extent engineered.
"Now!" she whispered. "They are not looking." She halted and turned back. They were among the trees of the forest where some concealment might be found.
Smith and Jezebel had stopped at Lady Barbara's direction; and for an instant the three paused, breathless, watching the retreating figures of their captors.
"Now run!" whispered Lady Barbara. "We'll scatter and meet again at the foot of the cliff."
Just what prompted Lady Barbara to suggest that they separate Lafayette Smith did not understand. To him it seemed a foolish and unnecessary decision; but as he had a great deal more confidence in Lady Barbara's judgment in practical matters than in his own he did not voice his doubts, though he accepted her plan with certain mental reservations, which guided his subsequent acts.
The English girl ran in a southeasterly direction, while Jezebel, obeying the commands of her friend, scurried off toward the southwest. Smith, glancing to the rear, discovered no indication that their captors had, as yet, missed them. For a moment he was hesitant as to what course to pursue. The conviction still gripped him that he was the natural protector of both girls, notwithstanding the unfortunate circumstances that had nullified his efforts to function successfully in that role; but he saw that it was going to be still more difficult to protect them both now that they had elected to run in different directions.
However, his decision was soon made, difficult though it was. Jezebel was in her own world; contemplation of capture by the North Midians had, so far from alarming her, appeared rather to have met with enthusiastic anticipation on her part; she could not be worse off with them than with the only other people she knew.
Lady Barbara, on the other hand, was of another world—his own world—and he had heard her say that death would be preferable to captivity among these semi-savages. His duty, therefore, was to follow and protect Lady Barbara; and so he let Jezebel take her way unprotected back toward the cliff, while he pursued the English girl in the direction of Chinnereth.
Lady Barbara Collis ran until she was out of breath. For several minutes she had distinctly heard the sounds of pursuit behind her—the heavy footfalls of a man. Frantic from hopelessness, she drew her pocket knife from a pocket of her jacket and opened the blade as she ran.
She wondered if she could destroy herself with this inadequate weapon. She was positive that she could not inflict either fatal or disabling injuries upon her pursuer with it. Yet the thought of self-destruction revolted her. The realization was upon her that she had about reached the limit of her endurance, and that the fatal decision could not be long averted, when her heritage of English fighting blood decided the question for her. There was but one thing it would permit—she must stand and defend herself. She stopped then, suddenly, and wheeled about, the little knife clutched in her right hand—a tigress at bay.
When she saw Lafayette Smith running toward her she collapsed suddenly and sank to the ground, where she sat with her back against the bole of a tree. Lafayette Smith, breathing hard, came and sat down beside her. Neither had any breath for words.
Lady Barbara was the first to regain her power of speech. "I thought I said we would scatter," she reminded him.
"I couldn't leave you alone," he replied.
"But how about Jezebel? You left her alone."
"I couldn't go with both of you," he reminded her, "and you know Jezebel is really at home here. It means much more to you to escape than it means to her."
She shook her head. "Capture means the same thing to either of us," she said, "but of the two I am better able to take care of myself than Jezebel—she does not understand the nature of her danger."
"Nevertheless," he insisted, "you are the more important. You have relatives and friends who care for you. Poor little Jezebel has only one friend, and that is you, unless I may consider myself a friend, as I should like to do."
"I imagine we three have the unique distinction of being the closest corporation of friends in the world," she replied, with a wan smile, "and there doesn't seem to be anyone who wants to buy in."
"The Friendless Friends Corporation, Limited," he suggested.
"Perhaps we'd best hold a directors' meeting and decide what we should do next to conserve the interests of the stockholders."
"I move we move," he said.
"Seconded." The girl rose to her feet.
"You're terribly tired, aren't you?" he asked. "But I suppose the only thing we can do is to get as far away from the territory of the North Midians as possible. It's almost certain they will try to capture us again as soon as they discover we are missing."
"If we can only find a place to hide until night," she said. "Then we can go back to the cliffs under the cover of darkness and search for Jezebel and the place that she and I thought they might be scaled."
"This forest is so open that it doesn't afford any good hiding places, but at least we can look."
"Perhaps we shall find a place near the lake," said Lady Barbara. "We ought to come to it soon."
They walked on for a considerable distance without talking, each occupied with his own thoughts; and as no sign of pursuit developed their spirits rose.
"Do you know," he said presently, "that I can't help but feel that we're going to get out of this all right in the end?"
"But what a terrible experience! It doesn't seem possible that such things could have happened to me. I can't forget Jobab." It was the first time mention had been made of the tragedy at the southern village.
"You must not give that a thought," he said. "You did the only thing possible under the circumstances. If you had not done what you did both you and Jezebel would have been recaptured, and you know what that would have meant."
"But I've killed a human being," she said. There was an awed tone in her voice.
"I killed one, too," he reminded her, "but I don't regret it in the least, notwithstanding the fact that I never killed anyone before. If I were not such a terrible marksman I should have killed another today, perhaps several. My regret is that I didn't.
"It's a strange world," he continued after a moment's reflective silence. "Now, I always considered myself rather well educated and fitted to meet the emergencies of life; and I suppose I should be, in the quiet environment of a college town; but what an awful failure I have proved to be when jolted out of my narrow little rut. I used to feel sorry for the boys who wasted their time at shooting galleries and in rabbit hunting. Men who boasted of their marksmanship merited only my contempt, yet within the last twenty-four hours I would have traded all my education along other lines for the ability to shoot straight."
"One should know something of many things to be truly educated," said the girl, "but I'm afraid you exaggerate the value of marksmanship in determining one's cultural status."
"Well, there's cooking," he admitted. "A person who cannot cook is not well educated. I had hoped one day to be an authority on geology; but with all I know of the subject, which of course isn't so much at that, I would probably starve to death in a land overrunning with game because I can neither shoot nor cook."
Lady Barbara laughed. "Don't develop an inferiority complex at this stage," she cried. "We need every ounce of self-assurance that we can muster. I think you are top hole. You may not be much of a marksman—that I'll have to admit, and perhaps you cannot cook; but you've one thing that covers a multitude of shortcomings in a man—you are brave."
It was Lafayette Smith's turn to laugh. "That's mighty nice of you," he said. "I'd rather you thought that of me than anything else in the world; and I'd rather you thought it than any one else, because it would mean so much to you now; but it isn't true. I was scared stiff in that village last night and when those fellows came at us today, and that's the truth."
"Which only the more definitely justifies my statement," she replied.
"I don't understand."
"Cultured and intelligent people are more ready to realize and appreciate the dangers of a critical situation than are ignorant, unimaginative types. So, when such a person stands his ground determinedly in the face of danger, or voluntarily walks into a dangerous situation from a sense of duty, as you did last night, it evidences a much higher quality of courage than that possessed by the ignorant, physical lout who hasn't brains enough to visualize the contingencies that may result from his action."
"Be careful," he warned her, "or you'll make me believe all that—then I'll be unbearably egotistical. But please don't try to convince me that my inability to cook is a hallmark of virtue."
"I—listen! What was that?" she halted and turned her eyes toward the rear.
"They have found us," said Lafayette Smith. "Go on—go as fast as you can! I'll try to delay them."
"No," she replied, "there is no use. I'll remain with you, whatever happens."
"Please!" he begged. "Why should I face them if you won't take advantage of it."
"It wouldn't do any good," she said. "They'd only get me later, and your sacrifice would be useless. We might as well give ourselves up in the hope that we can persuade them to free us later, or, perhaps, find the opportunity to escape after dark."
"You had better run," he said, "because I am going to fight. I am not going to let them take you without raising a hand in your defense. If you get away now, perhaps I can get away later. We can meet at the foot of the cliffs—but don't wait for me if you can find a way out. Now, do as I tell you!" His tone was peremptory—commanding.
Obediently she continued on toward Chinnereth, but presently she stopped and turned. Three men were approaching Smith. Suddenly one of the three swung his club and hurled it at the American, at the same instant dashing forward with his fellows.
The club fell short of its mark, dropping at Smith's feet. She saw him stoop and seize it, and then she saw another detachment of the Midians coming through the woods in the wake of the first three.
Smith's antagonists were upon him as he straightened up with the club in his hand, and he swung it heavily upon the skull of the man who had hurled it at him and who had rushed forward in advance of his fellows with hands out-stretched to seize the stranger.
Like a felled ox the man dropped; and then Lady Barbara saw Smith carry the unequal battle to the enemy, as swinging the club above his head, he rushed forward to meet them.
So unexpected was his attack that the men halted and turned to elude him, but one was too slow and the girl heard the fellow's skull crush beneath the heavy blow of the bludgeon.
Then the reinforcements, advancing at a run, surrounded and overwhelmed their lone antagonist, and Smith went down beneath them.
Lady Barbara could not bring herself to desert the man who had thus bravely, however hopelessly, sought to defend her; and when the North Midians had disarmed and secured Smith they saw her standing where she had stood during the brief engagement.
"I couldn't run away and leave you," she explained to Smith, as the two were being escorted toward the village of the North Midians. "I thought they were going to kill you, and I couldn't help you—Oh, it was awful. I couldn't leave you then, could I?"
He looked at her for a moment. "No," he answered. "You couldn't."
Danny "Gunner" Patrick was tired and disgusted. He had walked for several hours imagining that he was following a spoor, but he had seen nothing of his erstwhile companion. He was thirsty, and so cast frequent glances in the direction of the lake.
"T'ell!" he muttered. "I ain't goin' to tail that guy no longer till I get me a drink. My mouth feels like I'd been eating cotton for a week."
He turned away from the cliffs and started down in the direction of the lake, the inviting waters of which sparkled alluringly in the afternoon sun; but the beauties of the scene were wasted upon the "Gunner," who saw only a means of quenching his thirst.
The way led through a field of scattered boulders fallen from the towering rim above. He had to pick his way carefully among the smaller ones, and his eyes were almost constantly upon the ground. Occasionally he was compelled to skirt some of the larger masses, many of which towered above his head obstructing his view ahead.
He was damning Africa in general and this section of it in particular as he rounded the corner of an usually large fragment of rock, when suddenly he stopped and his eyes went wide.
"Geeze!" he exclaimed aloud. "A broad!"
Before him, and coming in his direction, was a golden-haired girl attired in a single, scant piece of rough material. She saw him simultaneously and halted.
"Oh," exclaimed Jezebel with a happy smile. "Who are thou?" but as she spoke in the language of the land of Midian the "Gunner" failed to understand her.
"Geeze," he said. "I knew I must of come to Africa for something, and I guess you're it. Say kid, you're about all right. I'll tell the world you are all right."
"Thank you," said Jezebel in English. "I am so glad that you like me."
"Geeze," said Danny. "You talk United States, don't you? Where you from?"
"Midian," replied Jezebel.
"Ain't never heard of it. What you doin' here? Where're your people?"
"I am waiting for Lady Barbara," replied the girl, "and Smith," she added.
"Smith! What Smith?" he demanded.
"Oh, he is beautiful," confided Jezebel.
"Then he ain't the Smith I'm lookin' for," said the "Gunner." "What's he doin' here, and who's this Lady Barbara dame?"
"Abraham, the son of Abraham, would have killed Lady Barbara and Jezebel if Smith had not come and saved us. He is very brave."
"Now I know it ain't my Smith," said Danny, "though I ain't sayin' he ain't got guts. What I mean is he wouldn't know enough to save no one—he's a geologist."
"Who are you?" demanded Jezebel.
"Call me Danny, Kid."
"My name is not kid," she explained sweetly. "It is Jezebel."
"Jezebel! Geeze, what a monicker! You look like it ought to be Gwendolyn."
"It is Jezebel," she assured him. "Do you know who I hoped you'd be?"
"No. Now just tell me, kid, who you supposed I was. Probably President Hoover or Big Bill Thompson, eh?"
"I do not know them," said Jezebel. "I hoped that you were the 'Gunner.'"
"The 'Gunner'? What do you know about the 'Gunner,' kid?"
"My name is not kid, it is Jezebel," she corrected him, sweetly.
"Oke, Jez," conceded Danny, "but tell me who wised you up to the 'Gunner' bozo."
"My name is not Jez, it is—"
"Oh, sure kid, it's Jezebel—that's oke by me; but how about the 'Gunner'?"
"What about him?"
"I just been a-askin' you."
"But I don't understand your language," explained Jezebel. "It sounds like English, but it is not the English Lady Barbara taught me."
"It ain't English," Danny assured her, seriously; "it's United States."
"It is quite like English though, isn't it?"
"Sure," said the "Gunner." "The only difference is we can understand English but the English don't never seem to understand all of ours. I guess they're dumb."
"Oh, no, they're not dumb," Jezebel assured him. "Lady Barbara is English, and she can talk quite as well as you."
Danny scratched his head. "I didn't say they was dummies. I said they was dumb. Dummies can't talk only with their mits. If a guy's dumb, he don't know nothing."
"Oh," said Jezebel.
"But what I asked you is, who wised you up to this 'Gunner' bozo?"
"Can you say it in English, please," asked Jezebel.
"Geeze, what could be plainer? I ask who told you about the 'Gunner' and what did they tell you?" Danny was waxing impatient.
"Smith told us. He said the 'Gunner' was a friend of his; and when I saw you I thought you must be Smith's friend, hunting for him."
"Now, what do you know about that!" exclaimed Danny.
"I have just told you what I know about it," explained the girl; "but perhaps you did not understand me. Perhaps you are what you call dumb."
"Are you trying to kid me, kid?" demanded the "Gunner."
"My name is not—"
"Oh, all right, all right. I know what your name is."
"Then why do you not call me by my name? Do you not like it?"
"Sure, kid—I mean Jezebel—sure I like it. It's a swell handle when you get used to it. But tell me, where is old Smithy?"
"I do not know such a person."
"But you just told me you did."
"Oh, I see," cried Jezebel. "Smithy is the United States for Smith. But Smith is not old. He's quite young."
"Well, where is he?" demanded Danny, resignedly.
"We were captured by the beautiful men from North Midian," explained Jezebel; "but we escaped and ran away. We ran in different directions, but we are going to meet tonight farther south along the cliffs."
"Beautiful men?" demanded the "Gunner." "Did old Smithy let a bunch of fairies hoist him?"
"I do not understand," said Jezebel.
"Youwouldn't," he assured her; "but say, kid—"
"My name—"
"Aw, forget it—you know who I mean. As I was saying, let's me and you stick together till we find old Smithy. What say?"
"That will be nice, the 'Gunner,'" she assured him.
"Say, call me Danny, k—Jezebel."
"Yes, Danny."
"Geeze, I never knew Danny was such a swell monicker till I heard you say it. What say we beat it for the big drink down there? I got me such a thirst my tongue's hanging out. Then we can come back to this here rock pile and look for old Smithy."
"That will be nice," agreed Jezebel. "I, too, am thirsty." She sighed. "You can not know how happy I am, Danny."
"Why?" he asked.
"Because you are with me."
"Geeze, k—Jezebel, but you're sure a fast worker."
"I do not know what you mean," she replied, innocently.
"Well, just tell me why you're happy because I'm with you."
"It is because I feel safe with you after what Smith told us. He said he always felt safe when you were around."
"So that's it? All you want is a protection guy, eh? You don't like me for myself at all, eh?"
"Oh, of course I like you, Danny," cried the girl. "I think you are beautiful."
"Yeah? Well, listen, sister. You may be a swell kidder—I dunno—or you may be just a dumb egg—but don't call me no names. I know what my pan looks like; and it ain't beautiful, and I ain't never wore a béret."
Jezebel, who only caught the occasional high spots of Danny's conversation, made no reply; and they walked on in the direction of the lake, in silence, for some time. The forest was some little distance away, on their left, and they had no knowledge of what was transpiring there, nor did any sound reach their ears to acquaint them with the misfortune that was befalling Lady Barbara and Lafayette Smith.
At the lake they quenched their thirst, after which the "Gunner" announced that he was going to rest for a while before he started back toward the cliffs. "I wonder," he said, "just how far a guy can walk, because in the last two days I've walked that far and back again."
"How far is that?" inquired Jezebel.
He looked at her a moment and then shook his head. "It's twice as far," he said, as he stretched himself at full length and closed his eyes. "Geeze, but I'm about all in," he murmured.
"In what?"
He deigned no reply and presently the girl noted from his altered breathing that he was asleep. She sat with her eyes glued upon him, and occasionally a deep sigh broke from her lips. She was comparing Danny with Abraham, the son of Abraham, with Lafayette Smith and with the beautiful men of North Midian; and the comparison was not uncomplimentary to Danny.
The hot sun was beating down upon them, for there was no shade here; and presently its effects, combined with her fatigue, made her drowsy. She lay down near the "Gunner" and stretched luxuriously. Then she, too, fell asleep.
The "Gunner" did not sleep very long; the sun was too hot. When he awoke he raised himself on an elbow and looked around. His eyes fell on the girl and there they rested for some time, noting the graceful contours of the lithe young body, the wealth of golden hair, and the exquisite face.
"The kid's sure some looker," soliloquized Danny. "I seen a lotta broads in my day, but I ain't never seen nothin' could touch her. She'd sure be a swell number dolled up in them Boul Mich rags. Geeze, wouldn't she knock their lamps out! I wonder where this Midian burgh is she says she comes from. If they's all as swell lookin' as her, that's the burgh for me."
Jezebel stirred and he reached over and shook her on the shoulder. "We'd better be beatin' it," he said. "We don't want to miss old Smithy and that dame."
Jezebel sat up and looked about her. "Oh," she exclaimed, "you frightened me. I thought something was coming."
"Why? Been dreaming?"
"No. You said we'd have to beat something."
"Aw, cheese it! I meant we'd have to be hittin' the trail for the big rocks."
Jezebel looked puzzled.
"Hike back to them cliffs where you said old Smithy and that Lady Barbara dame were going to meet you."
"Now I understand," said Jezebel. "All right, come on."
But when they reached the cliffs there was no sign of Smith or Lady Barbara, and at Jezebel's suggestion they walked slowly southward in the direction of the place where she and the English girl had hoped to make a crossing to the outer world.
"How did you get into the valley, Danny?" asked the girl.
"I come through a big crack in the mountain," he replied.
"That must be the same place Smith came though," she said. "Could you find it again?"
"Sure. That's where I'm headed for now."
It was only mid-afternoon when Danny located the opening into the fissure. They had seen nothing of Lady Barbara and Smith, and they were in a quandary as to what was best to do.
"Maybe they come along and made their getaway while we was hittin' the hay," suggested Danny.
"I don't know what you are talking about," said Jezebel, "but what I think is that they may have located the opening while we were asleep and gone out of the valley."
"Well ain't that what I said?" demanded Danny.
"It didn't sound like it."
"Say, you trying to high hat me?"
"High hat?"
"Aw, what's the use?" growled the "Gunner," disgustedly. "Let's me and you beat it out of this here dump and look for Smithy and the skirt on the other side. What say?"
"But suppose they haven't gone out?"
"Well, then we'll have to come back again; but I'm sure they must have. See this foot print?" He indicated one of his own, made earlier in the day, which pointed toward the valley. "I guess I'm getting good," he said. "Pretty soon that Tarzan guy won't have no edge on me at all."
"I'd like to see what's on the other side of the cliffs," said Jezebel. "I have always wanted to do that."
"Well, you won't see nothin' much," he assured her. "Just some more scenery. They ain't even a hot dog stand or a single speakeasy."
"What are those?"
"Well, you might call 'em filling stations."
"What are filling stations?"
"Geeze, kid, what do you think I am, a college perfessor? I never saw anyone who could ask so many questions in my whole life."
"My name—"
"Yes, I know what your name is. Now come on and we'll crawl through this hole-in-the-wall. I'll go first. You follow right behind me."
The rough going along the rocky floor of the fissure taxed the "Gunner's" endurance and his patience, but Jezebel was all excitement and anticipation. All her life she had dreamed of what might lie in the wonderworld beyond the cliffs.
Her people had told her that it was a flat expanse filled with sin, heresy, and iniquity, where, if one went too far he would surely fall over the edge and alight in the roaring flames of an eternal hades; but Jezebel had been a doubter. She had preferred to picture it as a land of flowers and trees and running water, where beautiful people laughed and sang through long, sunny days. Soon she was to see for herself, and she was much excited by the prospect.
And now at last they came to the end of the great fissure and looked out across the rolling foothills toward a great forest in the distance.
Jezebel clasped her hands together in ecstasy. "Oh, Danny," she cried, "how beautiful it is!"
"What?" asked the "Gunner."
"Oh, everything. Don't you think it is beautiful, Danny?"
"The only beautiful thing around here, k—Jezebel, is you," said Danny.
The girl turned and looked up at him with her great blue eyes. "Do you think I am beautiful, Danny?"
"Sure I do."
"Do you think I amtoobeautiful?"
"There ain't no such thing," he replied, "but if they was you're it. What made you ask?"
"Lady Barbara said I was."
The "Gunner" considered this for some moments. "I guess she's right at that, kid."
"You like to call me Kid, don't you?" asked Jezebel.
"Well, it seems more friendly-like," he explained, "and it's easier to remember."
"All right, you may call me Kid if you want to, but my name is Jezebel."
"That's a bet," said Danny. "When I don't think to call you Jezebel, I'll call you kid, Sister."
The girl laughed. "You're a funny man, Danny. You like to say everything wrong. I'm not your sister, of course."
"And I'm damn glad you ain't, kid."
"Why? Don't you like me?"
Danny laughed. "I never seen a kid like you before," he said. "You sure got me guessin'. But at that," he added, a little seriously for him, "they's one thing I ain't guessin' about and that's that you're a good little kid."
"I don't know what you are talking about," said Jezebel.
"And at that I'll bet you don't," he replied; "and now kid, let's sit down and rest. I'm tired."
"I'm hungry," said Jezebel.
"I ain't never see a skirt that wasn't but why did you have to bring that up? I'm so hungry I could eat hay."
"Smith killed a kid and we ate some of that," said Jezebel. "He wrapped the rest up in the skin and I suppose he lost it when the North Midians attacked us. I wish—"
"Say," exclaimed Danny, "what a dumb-bell I am!" He reached down into one of his pockets and brought out several strips of raw meat. "Here I been packin' this around all day and forgets all about it—and me starvin' to death."
"What is it?" asked Jezebel, leaning closer to inspect the unsavory morsels.
"It's pig," said Danny as he started searching for twigs and dry grass to build a fire, "and I know where they is a lot more that I thought I couldn't never eat but I know now I could—even if I had to fight with the maggots for it."
Jezebel helped him gather wood, which was extremely scarce, being limited to dead branches of a small variety of artemisia that grew on the mountain side; but at length they had collected quite a supply, and presently they were grilling pieces of boar meat over the flames. So preoccupied were they neither saw three horsemen draw rein at the top of a ridge a mile away and survey them.
"This is like housekeeping, ain't it?" remarked the "Gunner."
"What is that?" asked Jezebel.
"That's where a guy and his girl friend get hitched and go to doin' their own cooking. Only in a way this is better—they ain't goin' to be no dishes to wash."
"What is hitched, Danny?" asked Jezebel.
"Why—er," Danny flushed. He had said many things to many girls in his life, many of them things that might have brought a blush to the cheek of a wooden Indian; but this was the first time, perhaps, that Danny had felt any embarrassment.
"Why—er," he repeated, "hitched means married."
"Oh," said Jezebel. She was silent for a while, watching the pork sizzling over the little flames. Then she looked up at Danny. "I think housekeeping is fun," she said.
"So do I," agreed Danny; "with you," he added and his voice was just a trifle husky. His eyes were on her; and there was a strange light in them, that no other girl had ever seen there. "You're a funny little kid," he said presently. "I never seen one like you before," and then the neglected pork fell off the end of the sharpened twig, with which he had been holding it, and tumbled into the fire.
"Geeze!" exclaimed Danny. "Look at that!" He fished the unsavory looking morsel from the ashes and flames and surveyed it. "It don't look so good, but I'm goin' to fool it. I'm goin' to eat it anyway. I wouldn't care if a elephant had sat on it for a week—I'd eat it, and the elephant, too."
"Oh, look!" cried Jezebel. "Here come some men and they are all black. What strange beasts are they sitting on? Oh, Danny, I am afraid."
At her first exclamation the "Gunner" had turned and leaped to his feet. A single look told him who the strangers were—no strangers to him.
"Beat it, kid!" he cried. "Duck back into the crack, and hit the trail for the valley. They can't follow you on gee-gees."
The threeshiftaswere already close; and when they saw that they had been discovered they spurred forward at a gallop, and yet Jezebel stood beside the little fire, wide eyed and frightened. She had not understood the strange argot that the "Gunner" employed in lieu of English. "Beat it" and "duck" and "hit the trail" had not been included in the English idiom she had gleaned from Lady Barbara Collis. But even had she understood him it would have made no difference, for Jezebel was not of the clay that is soft in the face of danger, her little feet not of the kind that run away, leaving a companion in distress.
The "Gunner" glanced behind him and saw her. "For God's sake run, kid," he cried. "These are tough guys. I know 'em," then theshiftaswere upon him.
To conserve ammunition, which was always scarce and difficult to obtain, they tried to ride him down, striking at him with their rifles. He dodged the leading horseman; and as the fellow reined in to wheel his mount back to the attack, the "Gunner" leaped to his side and dragged him from the saddle. The mount of the secondshiftastumbled over the two men and fell unhorsing its rider.
The "Gunner" seized the long rifle that had fallen from the hands of the man he had dragged down and scrambled to his feet. Jezebel watched him in wide eyed wonder and admiration. She saw him swing the rifle like a club and strike at the third horseman, and then she saw the one he had first grappled lunge forward and, seizing him around the legs, drag him down, while the second to be unhorsed ran in now and leaped upon him just as the remainingshiftastruck him a heavy blow on the head.
As she saw him fall, the blood gushing from an ugly wound in his head, Jezebel ran forward to him; but theshiftasseized her. She was thrown to the back of a horse in front of one of them, the others mounted, and the three galloped away with their prisoner, leaving Danny "Gunner" Patrick lying motionless in a welter of his own blood.