Less than eighty yards behind them the outlaw, a heavy club in each hand, battled his way through the crowd. His towering form plunged this way and that in an effort to shake himself free of the two or three swarthy figures that still clung to him. Like a madman he fought forward fifteen or twenty yards, then went down suddenly before a concerted rush that literally tramped him in the sand under the infuriated feet of the mob.
“He was a fool to try it,” said Sandy. “How in the dickens did he ever manage to free himself of the rope in the first place? Whew! He’s a regular human tornado!”
“They were getting ready to take the prisoners away somewhere, by the looks of it. Probably he was untied for a moment, and he saw his chance,” Dick replied.
“He’ll never have another one,” Sandy prophesied. “I’ll bet they’ll watch him so closely from now on, they’ll all need glasses for their worn-out eyes. I hope he didn’t kill any of them.”
A splash in the water near at hand recalled their forgotten swim, and the two boys looked up just as the chief’s son came blowing to the surface a few feet from shore.
“He’s a cool one,” admired Dick. “He didn’t pay any more attention to the struggle back there just now than he would to a dog fight.”
Sandy kicked off his moccasins and socks and paused to wriggle his toes in the sand.
“I’m very anxious to know what they intend to do with Baptiste and Henderson. Toma, don’t you suppose you could find out. You said last night that you could understand a few words of what they said at the meeting. Why don’t you try to question the chief’s son?”
“Bye-’n’-bye I speak to him,” promised Toma. “But why you worry so much ’bout them?”