He rose to his feet, still breathing heavily from his furious outburst.
"Phew! but that did me good," he said, rolling the unconscious Cummings over with a contemptuous foot. "I reckon this coyote won't go hunting his own people with a pack of yellow dogs for a long time to come."
Pete was right, it was many a day before Cummings got over his thrashing, but in the meantime the delay occasioned by Pete's outbreak came near to costing them dear.
A sudden trampling in the darkness behind them made them turn, and they saw dimly the figure of a horseman behind them. The starlight glinted on his rifle barrel as he aimed it at them and covered both the fugitives beyond hope of escape.
"Up your hands!"
The command came from the new arrival in broken, but none the less vigorous and unmistakable English.