“Look out, Boyd! He’s goin’ ter jump!” exclaimed one fellow.
Several of the others stepped warily back and raised their guns. Above on the hillside—this had been prearranged by Cody—one of the troopers shouted:
“Who goes there?”
“Curse my body and bones!” growled Bennett. “The game is spoiled! They’ve heard us.”
The supposed panther screamed again, and then the body in the tree was hurled out into the air. Involuntarily every outlaw in sight took a pot-shot at the flying body. The mountainside reechoed with the reports of half a dozen guns, and the flashes of the same revealed to the ambushed party just where the bandits stood.
The log of wood, dressed in a blanket, representing the panther, and jerked out of the tree by Cody’s lariat, fell to the ground riddled by the bullets of the outlaws. But instantly Danforth leaped up and shouted to his men:
“Now, my bullies! Give it to them!”
The troopers fired a broadside. Four of the robbers dropped under the fire, and two more ran away screaming. Cody had picked out Bennett, and intended to wound or kill him; but the wily scoundrel seemed to fear some game just as the dummy was yanked by Danforth from the tree. He leaped away and dodged behind a boulder before the first shot from the party in ambush was fired.
As the echoes of the first round from the troopers died away Boyd Bennett raised an ear-splitting yell of defiance. It was a war-whoop that the redskins in the rear evidently understood. They answered from the valley, and, although the soldiers had succeeded in placing so many of the bandits hors de combat at their first fire, Danforth whistled almost instantly for his men to retire.
“Did you wing Bennett, Cody?” asked the young lieutenant.