“Steady, old thing,” warned Jack, as Bob with a wild gleam in his eyes appeared on the verge of tackling the enemy host single-handed. “Let’s stick together. You’ve thrown an awful scare into them.”
In fact, the Bone Crusher’s men showed little stomach for fighting, that is, for facing Bob. The mute evidence of the latter’s prowess was at his back, where the prone figure of the Bone Crusher lay without a quiver, since that blow on the point of the jaw.
But the lull in hostilities did not last. Chief Ruku-Ru’s men were heartened by the turn of events in their favor. They crowded forward with sharp yells. The flight of arrows into the mass of the enemy began anew.
“I haven’t the heart to shoot to kill,” muttered Frank. “But if they realize we have firearms, they may flee more quickly. I’m going to shoot over their heads.”
He suited action to word, and began pumping away with his automatic. It was the last thing needed to hasten the growing panic. In a trice, conditions were reversed. The Bone Crusher’s men broke into headlong flight, dashing away pell mell amongst the huts on the opposite side of the village square. And the villagers streamed past the boys in pursuit.
They found themselves practically alone in the square. Pursuit drew away into the distance. The victorious vengeful cries of the villagers mingling with the screams of the vanquished came back to them. Dazedly, they gazed about at the numerous evidences of the battle just ended, in the cowering women abandoned by their captors and not yet fully realizing their fortunate rescue, in the bodies of a score of men, including that of Chief Ruku-Ru and the Bone Crusher, and in arrows scattered here and there.
“By golly, Bob,” said Frank, whose face was pale, as he thought of the peril into which his big chum had launched himself, “I’ve seen you do a lot of foolish things, but that was the worst. To tackle that giant.”
“Huh,” was all the other deigned to reply.
Jack was bending above the form of Chief Ruku-Ru, and a moment later he straightened up and beckoned the others to join him.
“Unconscious but beginning to mutter,” he said. “He’ll recover soon. I think his right shoulder is dislocated, but I don’t believe he has any serious injury. Let’s carry him to his hut, and I’ll try to set his shoulder.”