"You'll agree or it will be the worse for you. Remember I've got the best of you."
Billy opened his mouth to speak, then discreetly closed it again. He was about to say that Pete was reckoning without a knowledge of the situation, when suddenly the thought of Tad Butler entered the guide's mind. Tad was nowhere in sight. The boy, he believed, was out on the trail, and he did not know how far the boy might have wandered. Lilly did not know what was best to be done in the circumstances. He was unarmed. It was true he might leap on his assailant, but the chances were that Pete would shoot him before he could disarm the man.
"I don't agree to any of your conditions. Now what are you going to do about it?" demanded Lilly, his lips closing into a firm, straight line.
"I am going to—"
Pete did not finish what he was about to say. A sudden and unlooked-for interruption changed the current of his thoughts in a startling manner. With a yell he leaped back, his revolver going off into the air.
In a second Alligator Pete lay rolling and writhing on the ground.
[CHAPTER XXII]
OUTWITTED BY A BOY
Bill Lilly's attention had been called to a slight movement of the bushes behind where Alligator Pete was standing, but he did not understand the meaning of the disturbance, nor did he look very sharply until something unusual caused him to flash a quick glance in that direction.
A writhing, twisting something rose from behind the bushes, wriggled through the air, headed directly for Pete. The guide suddenly realized that it was a rope, with a great loop at the end of it.