Page:Harry Castlemon - The Steel Horse.djvu/326

 took one of the canine vagabonds plumb in the mouth and tumbled him over backward.

"Whoop-pee! That was a bully shot, Jakey," yelled Roy, recalling some of the incidents of the first battle he and his chums had with Matt Coyle and his family. "Throw another, Jakey. Great Scott! They're coming for us."

That was plain enough to boys who could see as well as Joe and Arthur could. The stone certainly had an effect upon them, for they no longer stood on the defensive. They charged at once, the stricken brute leading the way, and his companion keeping close at his heels. I tell you the sight they presented was enough to frighten anybody, unless his nerves were made of steel, as mine were, but we did not run. I couldn't without help, and Joe and his chums wouldn't. In less time than it takes to tell it one of the charging brutes was knocked flat by a second stone from Roy's unerring hand, and the other fell with a bullet in his brain, shot fairly in the eye by Arthur Hastings's pocket rifle. But the death of his companion and the crack of the cartridge did