“I thought I heard a noise like someone rolling about on the ground,” Jack said, as soon as he had barred the door.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if you did,” Bob grinned.
“What happened?” Rex asked.
“Jacques and I had a little set to. That is, I think it was he, although it was so dark that I couldn’t be sure.” And he told them about the fight.
“I hated to break his arm, but it was he or I, and I was afraid that the others would hear us and come to his help,” he concluded.
“You don’t need to waste any sympathy on him,” Stebbins said, “they’re a bad lot and it would have been a mighty good job if you had killed him.”
“Now, I think the three of us had better go out together and hang around,” Bob proposed. “They’ve got another fire all ready to light, and they may do it, although I doubt it. Anyhow, we’d better be on the safe side. I reckon we won’t run much risk with one of them with a broken arm.”
Keeping close together, they circled the cabin until the first streaks of light appeared in the east, but they heard nothing from their enemies.
“Guess we’d better go inside,” Bob said; “they might take a shot at us as soon as it gets light enough to see.”
They acted on the suggestion none too soon, for just as Rex, who happened to be the last one in, stepped inside, a bullet whistled past his head and struck the wall at the back of the room.