"There, then!" cried Farrell.
But there followed only the metallic tap of the hammer,—no report, only that steely click; and before one could well know what had happened, Apache Kid was the man on top, shoving Farrell's head down in the sand, but still clutching Farrell's right wrist and turning aside that hand that held the weapon which, on his first sudden movement, had sent its bullet into the sand beside Apache.
"You goat!" cried Apache Kid. "When you intend to use two guns, see that they both are loaded, or else don't hold the one that you 've fired the last from right in front of——" He broke off and flung up his head, like a wolf baying, and laughed.
He was a weird sight then, his face blackened from the shot he had evaded. But by this time, I need hardly tell you, I was by his side, helping to hold down the writhing Farrell—and the half-breed brought us the lariat from his horse and we trussed Farrell up, hands and feet, and then stood up. And as we turned from him there was Donoghue sitting up with a foolish look on his face and the blood trickling on his brow; and, pointing a hand at us, he cried out, "Come here, some o' you sons o' guns, and tie up my head a bit so as I kin git up and see his hangin' afore I die."
Farrell writhed afresh in his bonds as he heard Donoghue's cry, and in a voice in which there seemed nothing human, he roared, "What! is that feller Donoghue not killed?"
"No, sir!" Donoghue replied, his head falling and his chin on his breast, but eyes looking up, with the blood running into them from under his ragged eyebrows: "No, sir,—after you!" he cried, and he let out that hideous oath that I had heard him use once before, but cannot permit myself to write or any man to read.
CHAPTER XVI
Sounds in the Forest
e hanged Farrell in the morning, for he had broken the compact and he was a murderer. And we laid Pinkerton to his rest in the midst of the plain, with a cairn of stones to mark the spot.