“Looks like it, old man.”
“Get down quick, then—take yer weepens, and send the hoss on. You’ve got ter lose him, or yer sculp.”
The man did not hesitate, but flung himself from the saddle and scored his knife-point sharply across the flank of the horse, which fled on lightly, being freed from its rider, and without a word the hunter led the way into the crevice which he had just left.
The horse had just made the last turn in the canon when about twenty of those Arabs of the plains, the Blackfeet, suddenly came in view, riding with loosened reins, their mustangs scrambling like cats along the bed of the canon, and the riders, bending forward like huntsmen in the chase, urging them on by word and blow. They passed like a whirlwind, and were gone; then the hunter bounded to his feet.
“Thar they go, the painted riptiles, like bed-bugs armed fur war! Come on, stranger; the quicker we git up these yer rocks the better.”
“I am a poor footpad,” said the stranger, with a light laugh; “but lead the way, old True Blue, and I’ll follow. That was a close shave, I tell you.”
“Clust enuff fur comfert,” replied the hunter. “This a-way.”
He began to climb the rugged side of the ravine with the agility of a cat, swinging his huge body from ledge to ledge by the power of his gigantic arms, and then turning to assist his companion, who, although younger, was by no means so agile.
Again and again, but for the timely aid of those muscular arms, the younger man would have fallen headlong into the gulf below, but at last they reached the top of the ledge, fifty feet above the canon bottom.
“Down—fur yer life—down!” hissed the hunter, as they reached the top of the ledge.