Barney grabbed his fiddle and half threw it into the wagon of the Steam Horse, and grasped his favorite old blackthorn stick, which Frank had found at the pass after the battle and had faithfully preserved.
Armed with a weapon in the use of which he was skilled, the Irishman uttered his wild native yell and went boldly into the rumpus.
“Me feyther was an O’Doolahan by me great-gran’mother’s side, do yez moind, and the O’Doolahans was allus in the most haythenish rackets that ye iver saw, and that’s where I got me fighting qualities from, ye moind. Thin all the Sheas was allus noted for love o’ good whisky an’ purty girruls, and that’s in my blood too, do ya moind, and so how I can sthop wid me mussin’ is more than I know, so it is.”
And while he kept rattling away in his slap-dash reckless style he was distributing headaches and fractures, and small editions of nervousness with lavish hand, for that blackthorn shillaleh never ceased playing upon the heads of his foes all the while he was jabbering.
Pomp jumped from the wagon of the Steam Man.
In went his banjo, and out came an iron bar that lay upon the floor of the body.
Twirling this as lightly as any dandy in the land would twirl his gold-headed cane, the darkey leaped in among the half-intoxicated reds.
The white men and the outlaws had been more profuse in their use of liquor than their more temperate red friends, and were lying around in the most helpless position, dead drunk and perfectly useless.
Frank knew that his followers must strike quick and sharp, and then get away, or, despite the condition of the Indians, they must be crushed down and murdered by the mere brute force of numbers.
“Strike quick, heavy, and sharp,” he shouted, as he drove his blade into the tufted skull of an Indian who made an unsteady clip at him with a murderous-looking tomahawk, “and then jump for the wagons; we must not stop.”