'HANDS UP!'
The boys were as much startled as the Redskins. Looking up they saw the Indians sullenly and in silence lift their hands above their heads, red statues of wrath glaring fiercely but helplessly at a tall, rigid figure in the moonlight, standing between them and their rifles, its right arm raised, its vigilant eyes noting their every breath, and in its ready right hand a revolver, on which the moonlight rested cold and chill. That little weapon held the lives of six men. If one dared to move, that one died before he could draw another breath. They knew that. At ten yards old Dick Wharton could not miss. How they must have cursed the madness which had riveted their eyes on that glancing bone whilst this avenger stole between them and their weapons! If all rose and dashed at him he would not have time to kill more than one or two, but then he who led that movement must die, and, even so, would the others back him up? It was a hard question. No one was ready to make that first move and pay the price, and so, as men always do when 'put up' by a resolute man who 'has the drop upon them,' they sat still.
'Boys,' said the voice again, 'you can git up now and take these here rifles from behind me. Look sharp.'
Frank and Snap needed no second bidding, though they felt the six men's eyes following their movements. Their eyes were all they dared to move, for they knew that even while he issued his orders Dick Wharton's eyes never left them for a moment; like the muzzle of his revolver, they rested on them unceasingly.
'There's a Redskin tied up to a tree and gagged behind them rifles,' the voice continued; 'cut his thongs and set him free; give him a rifle and see as it's loaded; pick a rifle for me and see as that's loaded; take all the cartridges as you can get your claws on, and then smash up them other rifles against the handiest bull-pine. Do you mind me?'
'All right, Dick,' answered Snap, his knife already hacking at the leather thongs which bound the captive Indian, a fine-looking fellow, whose eyes glistened, but whose tongue said nothing even when Snap took away the gag.
He stretched his arms stiffly, and bent the joints of both legs and arms backwards and forwards once or twice as if uncertain whether or not he had lost the use of them, and when first set free he almost fell from weakness or stiffness—and no wonder, for his bonds had cut deep into his flesh and were dark with his blood.
Crash! crash! went the butts of the good rifles against the bull-pine. It seemed a sad waste, but they were Dick's orders and he was in command.