“It’s our only hope; my horse is too badly hurt to carry me off, but you may succeed, if you ride hard.”
“It won’t do,” replied the nephew, who, had the prospect been ten-fold more favorable, could not have deserted his relative at such a time.
“Hurrah!” he exclaimed the next moment, “yonder come the boys!”
He had caught sight of their friends approaching over the ridge, their animals on a dead run.
“They will be too late,” said Captain Shirril, whose horse at that moment received another shot and renewed his frantic struggles to regain his feet. His owner interposed, but, he, too, was wounded and unable to put forth the strength that had conquered the brute a moment before.
Avon would have gone to his help had there been anything to gain by it.
“Let him go,” he said, “he can do you no good.”
“Yes, he can and he shall.”
As he spoke, the captain whipped out his revolver and drove a couple of bullets through the brain of the mustang. He expected him to drop dead on the instant, when he would serve the purpose intended of a breastwork for his master.