A growl like that of an aroused animal came from the lips of Gorilla Jake.
“Stand up hyer and help me!” he flung at Benson.
But Benson knew which side his bread was buttered on right then, and he did nothing of the kind. He saw that the Utes had come for Gorilla Jake, and that if he interfered he would put his life in jeopardy. So he sat still, letting the angry Utes stream past and even over him.
“Wow!” breathed the excited Gamecock, an eye at the aperture taking everything in. “Wish’t Brother Bill was hyer ter see this right now. But I’m afeard that this trouble is goin’ to make it mighty hard fer me and Bill to collect that reward fer Gorilla Jake; it begins to look as if he is goin’ to git all that’s comin’ to him. Yet that reward offer said ‘alive or dead.’ If he was scalped, I don’t reckon that would make any difference. Only—I hope they won’t burn him; ’twould be purty hard ter produce the body, in that case.”
The Gamecock was trembling with excitement and apprehension. He wanted to hurl himself in there and take the part of the threatened man, then lead him off to the Blossom Range jail. But, plainly, that would not do. Even Jim Betts was not reckless enough to try that.
“Benson’s a coward, er he’d git right up and into that game,” he breathed. “Gorilla Jake is his friend, ain’t he? Well, why don’t he stand by his friend?”
The Indians were crowding before Gorilla Jake, who was shouting wildly at them. The one he had knocked down was on his feet again, this time with a hatchet in his hand.
“Stand back!” the apelike man howled at them. His knife had come out. “Stand back, all o’ ye, er take the consequences. Y’ ain’t goin’ to pull me to pieces, and not git my knife, I tell ye. Thar on the floor is the man you want—not me; he’s the man that started this thing, by s’jestin’ it. He’s the man that was to furnish the whisky—the coward; and now he sets thar, an’ let’s me do the fightin’. Stand back!”
Few if any of them understood his English, but they understood the significance of the sweep of his long arm as it whirled the knife.