Page:The Coming of Cassidy and the Others - Clarence E. Mulford.djvu/27

 to stop it, I 'll clean th' slate, anyhow," he snapped. "Even if I has to ambush! Will you run?" he demanded, and the wild-eyed little bundle of whalebone and steel found a little more speed in its flashing legs.

The rider now began to accept what cover he could find and when he neared the hut left the shelter of the last, low hill for that afforded by a draw leading to within a hundred yards of the dugout's rear wall. Dismounting, he ran lightly forward on foot, alert and with every sense strained for a warning.

Reaching the wall he peered around the corner and stifled an exclamation. Buck's puncher, a knife in his back, lay head down the sloping path. Placing his ear to the wall he listened intently for some moments and then suddenly caught sight of a shadow slowly creeping past his toes. Quickly as he sprang aside he barely missed the flashing knife and the bulk of the man behind it, whose hand, outflung to save his balance, accidentally knocked the Colt from Bill's grasp and sent it spinning twenty feet away.