"At all events, you have fully done your task. But why do you again hint of danger? I give you my word that I have pricked up my ears—which is more than our horses have done—and yet not the slightest—"
"Go on talking, and louder," whispered Oliver, significantly.
The Englishman hardly understood, but he obeyed the sudden mysterious injunction, whilst his interrupter continued with a vast relish to puff at his pipe, of which the smoke ascended thickly, and at regular periods. Gladsden listened, and stealthily gazed around, but to no avail. He then glanced at the American, who preserved the same ease of demeanour, and smoked as for a wager, his back to the stream, from which a sound of the turbulent ripple arose; the tobacco glowed in the pipe head, and dully illumined his brooding countenance. It struck the observer, however, that Oliver's left hand was scarcely sensibly lowering upon his rifle, which, of course, was near at his side.
Suddenly, with an action as rapid as thought, that weapon was picked up and levelled at the shoulder upon a bush, very thick with foliage, about a hundred and fifty paces afar, and instantly fired. There rose a little smoke from the touchhole plate, but no shot resounded.
Instantly a dark-complexioned man in hunter's attire bounded out of the shrub with a whoop of triumph, and pointed his gun at the couple in camp. But before the Englishman could do anything, his safe conductor, whose features assumed an expression of scornfulness, pulled the trigger of the breechloader a second time, and the unfailing bullet dashed into the brain of the stranger even as he was about to shoot.
All this passed in less time than it takes to write it.
Up went the man's hands, so that his gun fell just a little before he measured his length on the ground, and curled himself up; no cry, no second spasm; he was slain straightway.
"Thought hisself a smart Aleck, I reckon," remarked the hunter, with continual contempt. "You'll crawl, sneak, and squirm no more."
"If your rifle had snapped again, you or I would have been keeled over," remarked the Englishman.
"Great Scott!"[2] ejaculated the other, surprised, and laughing heartily, though not aloud. "You ain't a-going to say you were took in, too? Well, I never! It must a'been a 'tarnal choice dodge."