He rose to his feet and whipped out his knife as he spoke, but Gimp also came to the standing position, and he was a little quicker than the Tory. Golcher had drawn his weapon, but before he suspected the design of his assailant, Gimp lowered his head and ran like a steam-engine straight at him.
The iron-like skull struck Golcher "'midships" and knocked him over backwards, his heels going up in the air, while he described an almost complete somersault, with the breath gone from his body.
The drowsy Seneca roused up just in time to witness the performance, and to see the same battering-ram charging down upon him.
He turned to leap aside until he could draw his tomahawk, but he was a second too late, and the projectile took him in the pit of the stomach, and banged him against a neighboring tree with such violence that the breath left his body also, and there is reason to believe it never returned.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
There was not a particle of lameness in the movements of Gravity Gimp as he went through this programme, but his actions were like those of an athlete.
Catching up the gun of the prostrate Indian, he was off like a shot, running with the speed of a deer among the trees, and with great risk, for the darkness was too dense to permit him to see where he was going.
"Dat ere pertendin' dat I was lame was a stroke ob gen'us," he muttered, with a huge grin, as he slackened his gait somewhat, "and, if it hadn't been for dat lameness, I'd been 'sassinated.
"Shouldn't wonder if dey did scoop in all de folks," he added, with a pang of fear, "and if dey does, why Aunt Peggy must go to buttin' de Injuns ober de same as I done. Sh!"