"Hands up!" bellowed Joe, keeping well hidden. "Hands up or——"
There was a loud report which reverberated through the wood, while a rattle overhead told its tale unpleasantly. A shower of severed leaves sprayed on to Joe's head, while he listened to a curious click with which soldiers are familiar.
"Loading again—might get me next time. Shall I plug him?" he asked himself.
Very cautiously he lifted his rifle, and with it his head, which he had ducked at Hurley's shot. But where was the man? There was no sign of him. He had disappeared entirely.
"Dropped down where he was, and is waiting and watching. Dead certain he isn't moving," said Joe, "or I'd hear him. I'll wait and watch too."
Presently his patience was rewarded. A black sleeve came into view—only a tiny triangle showing—then the muzzle of the weapon. Joe levelled his own on the sleeve and called again loudly.
"Drop that gun, Hurley," he shouted roughly, "or take the consequences!"
The answer came so swiftly that he was astonished, and once again our hero had the unpleasant feeling of a bullet passing within close distance of him. Under the circumstances it required nerve to kneel a little higher, take aim just a foot below the spot where he had seen that sleeve, and press his own trigger. Then, like a dart, he sprang away, and within a moment was located behind a stout birch tree, which gave excellent cover.
"Got him, I think," he gasped. "There was a shout directly I fired. Wonder if I killed him?"
The thought set his ears tingling and a nasty cold feeling down the centre of his back. Joe wasn't bloodthirsty by any means. He hated the very thought of killing a man; but here it was decidedly a case of Hurley or himself. Softness and pity would be thrown away on such a villain; the smallest advantage allowed would certainly end in his own undoing. It was with the utmost caution, then, that our hero peeped out from behind cover, while his fingers were busily employed in thrusting a fresh cartridge into his rifle. Moreover, he listened eagerly for any sound which might tell him that Hurley was moving. Joe had, in fact, an artful and cunning foe to deal with, and quickly found that he was very far from effecting his purpose, also that the murderer was by no means likely to give in without a struggle. For as he peeped from behind the shelter of his tree a figure rose suddenly, a weapon was fired, and at the same instant down went the figure.