‘Good God! he’s shot!’ said Edgar, dismounting and running to the black. He found blood streaming from a deep wound in his side evidently inflicted with a knife. ‘How did this happen?’ asked Edgar, as he endeavoured to stanch the flow of blood with a neckerchief he had rapidly pulled off.
Yacka pointed to the dead man, and Will, who had come up, exclaimed:
‘This is not the fellow we left with Yacka. It is the man we have been chasing all this time.’
‘Where is the other man?’ asked Edgar, who could hardly believe his eyes.
‘I killed him,’ said Yacka faintly.
‘Where is he?’ asked Will.
Yacka pointed to some bushes, and Will went across and found the body of the man they had left with Yacka. This man had also been strangled.
They managed to stop the flow of blood from the deep wound in Yacka’s side, but it was some hours before he had sufficiently recovered strength to relate what had happened.
When Yacka heard the shot fired, he at once thought the man’s mate had doubled back to rescue him, and had given Edgar and Will the slip. He knew how easily it could be done by an old hand, and his surmise was confirmed by the expression on the man’s face when he heard the shot. In a moment Yacka had made up his mind how to act. He had no gun, for he found that all three had been taken, instead of only those belonging to Edgar and Will. He seized his prisoner by the throat, and strangled him. Then he propped the dead man up with his back to a tree, and tied him to it with one of the tethering ropes. He hid himself behind the tree and waited, and in a short time the other robber came on to the scene. When this man saw his mate bound to the tree, he dismounted and came towards him, evidently thinking Yacka had made him fast, that he had fallen asleep, and Yacka had gone away.
Yacka awaited his coming, crouching down behind the tree. No sooner did the man see his mate was dead than he realized that a trap had been set for him, and ran back to the horses. Yacka was quickly after him, and before the man could reach the horses had caught him up. Finding Yacka at such close quarters, the man drew his knife instead of his revolver, no doubt thinking it would be more effective. A desperate struggle ensued, which Yacka described graphically.