Hal poised for a bound, intending to snatch the rifle from him.
As the fellow dropped back, however, his companion coming up behind him was in time to snatch the rifle, turning the muzzle on Overton.
There being not a second to lose, and the fight unequal, Hal darted, instead, back to his tent pole.
There hung a mirror that he had used in shaving.
It took but an instant to get this. Then Hal raced for a tree thirty feet away.
Dropping the small mirror into a pocket, Overton started to climb the tree.
"Come down out of that tree, or we'll bring you down!" roared an ugly voice.
"You'll have to drop me, then, if you want me," taunted Hal coolly.
He was a dozen feet up the trunk by the time that the man who now held that rifle gained the base of the tree.
"Coming down, you——?" called the ruffian with an oath.