Once more the avenging outlaw crawled laboriously to his victim. And that despite the fact that every moment's delay placed his own life more and more in jeopardy.
Now came the most difficult part of his task. The bowie, driven in to its keen-edged limit, was tightly wedged in the body of the dead savage.
With feverish haste, the world's greatest desperado again buried his face in the awful pool of blood.
His teeth closed over the slippery hilt of the blade.
But it stubbornly resisted all his efforts.
The knife was too firmly embedded in its human sheath, to come away at his command.
The cords of the outlaw's neck swelled to enormous proportions from the fearful strain he was subjecting them to.
He sought to accomplish his ends, in another way. Biting the hilt as if he would sever it in twain, Jesse pushed against it with all the weight of his body. The keen edge, under his irresistable pressure, cut its way into the Indian's flesh at right angles to his body, thus widening the wound and making its sheath less binding.
Back and forth did the blood-thirsty outlaw work the blade.