“S’pose ye don’t, an’ save yer breath,” snarled Red Hajason. “Ye’re lucky I ain’t found no fault for the way ye let them two slip through yer hands while I was gone. I’m a fool to give ye even five hundred.”
Hester sighed and rode beside Red Hajason and remarked:
“Wal, if ye feel that way ’bout it, I reckon I won’t say nothin’ more. I’ll jest take all ye’ve got.”
He had pistoled his man before Sevier could guess what was coming. The borderer raised his rifle; then he lowered it as the five guards sounded a shout of rage and started for the assassin. The last Sevier saw of Hester the bully was galloping the two horses up the trail while he held Hajason’s body in the saddle and unfastened the heavy money-belt.
After the guards had pounded by his place of concealment Sevier darted across the trail. The rearmost guard happened to glance back and see him. He wheeled about with a yell of warning to his mates, but the four swept on to kill Hester. The cry was answered from the woods, however, and Sevier dived into cover just as the outlaws returned from chasing Bloody Mouth.
The borderer had no idea of leading the gang to the ledge, and at once he endeavoured to work north, parallel to the trail. The outlaws pressed him close. He shot one and was instantly engaged by two others. Clubbing his rifle, he knocked one senseless, whereat the second lost all stomach for the fight and fled. The delay permitted others to come up. Dropping his empty gun, he snatched up the rifles belonging to the dead man and his senseless mate and discharged both pointblank at his assailants. They fell back in confusion at this unexpected reception, and the borderer leaped into a thicket armed only with his knives.
Frantic cries from the trail, followed by a volley of rifle-fire, checked his flight and turned him back to investigate. As he emerged into the trail a horseman threw up his rifle, only to have it knocked aside by Kirk Jackson.
“John Sevier!” he yelled. “John Sevier without his shirt!”
Chucky Jack beheld his riflemen scuttling into the woods and out again in the process of running the horse-thieves to cover. On the ground were a dozen dead outlaws and two settlers. Stetson was standing beside his horse, tying a bandage about his arm by using his teeth, the process sadly weakening his emphatic sentiments concerning all “varments.”
“Hester got away!” panted Sevier, throwing himself on to a horse. “He went north—”