Until this time there had been no sound from him, other than his gasping breath and the noise of struggle. At the blow, he raised a call for help and, like an infuriated animal, he threshed about and threw us with him. The dust arose and the chips that carpet a camp flew. The Tewa swung from side to side; but the Tewa did not let him go.
There was a noise in the fringe of little cedars around us, and several Navajo appeared. And they advanced. And just then the stockman dropped his gun.
It fell in the dirt under our feet, and down swung this wild bull of the pampas, the Tewa balancing between his shoulders, to reach the weapon. One moment Guy’s feet were on the gun, holding it down, and next the stockman’s foot would scuffle to scrape it aside. With the stockman bent down for it, the Navajo would be clawing at his neck or kicking at his face. It was a furious scramble, and if he ever reached that automatic gun it was ready to explode.
The sight of the gun, too, seemed to anger and justify those others who had come up. It seemed probable to me that someone of the party would be hurt, and I preferred it to be a Navajo. So I stepped back out of the fuss, drew my gun, and warned those newcomers to keep their distance. They halted at the camp’s edge.
“Why don’t you smash that animal?” I called.
The haymaker that Hoske Nehol Gode then received in the face would have staggered Dempsey. It straightened him up, but very much to my surprise, it did not fell him. The shock, however, caused him to reel off the gun, and promptly the stockman recovered it. [[334]]
“Knock him down the next time.”
And smash went the forty-five over Guy’s head. But he did not drop. A Navajo of the back-country dresses his hair in a thick mattress across his scalp. Blood began to stream down his face. He let out a wild cry that he was being killed, a call for the women to help him. The night before they had sent a messenger for protection from this bully; but now they responded to his aid. They came forward, ready to claw us; and just what was the ethical thing to do then, I am not prepared to state.
“Turn him loose!” I called to the policeman.
“He may have a gun!” said the stockman.