“What were you whispering to that boy?” demanded one of the others.
“I was telling him,” Frank answered, making an insulting face, “that I used to have a dog that looked exactly like you.”
The fellow thus insulted sprang for the boy with upraised fist. The leader blocked his rush by imposing his own burly form, and the two went down together. The half-breeds sprang forward, too, the intention evidently being to assist their companion as against the leader.
Frank let out a yell which might have been heard half a mile away, and the three boys darted down the mountainside, followed by harmless shots from the guns of the half-breeds.
The incident had taken place on a rocky level flanked by steep slopes on each side. The place, in fact, was almost like a shelf of rock cut into a long fifty percent grade.
The ledge was narrow, and as the bunch clung together where the leader and his opponent still struggled, one of them slipped over the edge of the declivity and started downward. Naturally he caught hold of the first object within his reach, and this happened to be the shoe of the outlaw nearest to him. This man, in turn, caught another, and two more tried to pull up the falling ones, with the result that in about half a minute five of the half-breeds were rolling and tumbling heels over head down the rocky slope.
The boys were not far out of their path, but they managed to elude the downrushing bodies as they swung by. Notwithstanding the gravity of the situation, the boys shrieked with laughter as the clumsy fellows went tumbling down, uttering vicious curses at the boys, at the mountain and at each other.
“I wish I had a gun now!” shouted Frank.
As he spoke a formidable weapon which seemed to be half revolver and half sawed-off shotgun, flew out of the hands of one of the involuntary acrobats and landed against Frank’s side with a great thud.
Frank seized the weapon and backed away. By this time the leader was on his feet shouting wrathful commands for the boys to return.