Ramsay stepped out, deliberately, and took aim.
A bullet streaked fire between arm and side, searing his ribs—but to his shot Tom Emery’s giant figure came crashing forward, rolled over once and then lay sprawled out. For a moment Ramsay stood quiet, scarcely daring to realize that he was unhurt save for scratches, until he saw Ethel Gilman running down the cañon toward him.
Then he sprang forward and leaned over Emery, only to rise at once and hurry to the side of Cholo Bill. Just in time, too, for the halfbreed, leg broken by a bullet, was trying to reach his fallen pistol. Ramsay kicked the weapon away, and Cholo Bull, with a low groan, relaxed into unconsciousness. As Ramsay obtained the outlaw’s knife, the girl arrived on the scene.
He looked up at her with a slow laugh.
“Sagebrush said it couldn’t be done, but he was only partly right. Emery’s gone. Can you fix up some sort of bandage for this chap, after I get his arms lashed behind him? His leg’s broken, I think. The sheriff is on his way here, according to Sidewinder—and I’ll have to attend to that gentleman before he wakes up. We’ve got him, and we’ve got Cholo Bill, and it’s a good haul.”
As the white-faced girl nodded and knelt, Ramsay lashed the arms of the wounded man firmly behind him with the gay silk kerchief that had been at Cholo Bill’s neck, then rose and ran back to the car. Here again he had not an instant to lose, for Sidewinder Crowfoot was stirring, was clinging to the car and trying to haul himself up. Knowing with what incredible swiftness the man could strike, Ramsay did not hesitate, but stooped with a blow that drove Sidewinder prostrate again, then flung himself upon the fallen man and in five minutes had him disarmed and firmly bound hand and foot.
He rejoined the girl, to find her finishing her task as well as circumstances would permit, and as she took his hand to rise, he saw a change come into her face.
“Another car—there!”
Ramsay swung around, and a laugh broke from him at sight of another flivver bearing down for the cañon, crowded with men.
“Good! It looks as though the law had come to Pinecate Cañon at last, young lady!”