The savage uttered a piercing cry, threw up his hands with a despairing gesture, and then fell heavily backwards to the grassy plain.
Then Pomp’s pistol went up, and as his finger pressed the trigger the second one went down to rise no more, and the last of the three leaped upon him while the echo of the report still lingered upon the air.
They rolled to the ground, carried off of their feet by the terrific force of the shock with which they met.
Like two tigers they rolled over the soft grass.
Ralph Radcliffe got a clip alongside the head.
Pomp’s pistol had been forced from his hand, and by accident had hit the boy.
Ralph promptly picked it up, waited for the rolling pair to perform one more revolution, and then, as the Indian came upon top, the boy coolly put a leaden ball through his copper-colored body, and thus put a sudden end to this lively little unpleasantness.
And just as Pomp untangled himself from the entwining limbs of his tough Indian foe, his ears caught the sound of many hoofs beating the plains.
He looked away to the west and beheld James Van Dorn and his newly acquired command bearing down rapidly upon him.