A distant sound had come to his hearing. It was the faint rattle of firearms far up in the hills.
“Golly!” he ejaculated. “I see de trick ob dat berry sharp fox, Artemus Cliff. He am gwine fo’ to gib de Vigilants a good lickin’ afore he goes to Ranch V. Dat am jus’ my bes’ way for to jine Marse Harmon an’ his men, an’ help dem trash the cowboys.”
Pomp’s mind was made up.
He would join the vigilants and do his best to give the cowboys a good drubbing. He at once struck into the hills.
But alas for Pomp!
Luck seemed against the darky for the time being. He had not more than fairly entered a narrow pass when an appalling incident occurred.
The air was suddenly broken by wild yells, and in an instant he was surrounded by half a hundred painted savages, who burst from niches and crevices in the rocks about.
They pounced upon him, and before Pomp had even time to think of resistance he was a prisoner.
The savages swarmed about him like bees. Words cannot express Pump’s dismay at this turn.
His eyes bulged, and his knees shook as with the ague.