“Thar’s a temperance lesson fer ye!” said Betts. “Shows what whisky will do.”
“Ach! Vhisky iss no goot.”
“I’m goin’ to git clost enough to see if Jim is in the midst of that. You keep by me. Don’t fergit that I’ve got my umbreller gun. We’re goin’ to git down now and sneak along behind it. Thar’s bowlders big and little everywhars you look. Set this umbreller open on the ground, and in this pore light you couldn’t tell it frum a bowlder. We can take advantage of that fact; it’s why I like the old gun. Besides, if anybody comes toward us, I can drap him with it, and he won’t know whar the bullet come from. You jest keep close at my heels.”
Slipping to the ground, Bill Betts spread open his umbrella gun, and he and the baron got behind it.
The baron then saw that around the handle—which was the gun—where it passed through the umbrella there were openings, so that through them he and Betts could look out. Through those openings, also, Betts could aim the gun.
“The old thing is chock-a-block with ca’tridges, as I call ’em,” said Betts. “I kin mow down half a dozen reds without havin’ to reload, and I got plenty more ca’tridges in my pockets. Now, we’ll git closer.”
Pushing the open umbrella carefully ahead of him and moving slowly, Betts made a cautious approach to the lodge where the howling Utes were seen.
They were stopped in this perilous advance by seeing the rear of the lodge break open suddenly and Gorilla Jake come rolling out, dragging with him a number of Utes. Though he was painted like the Indians, Bill Betts knew him at once.
“Wow!” Betts breathed. “See that—see it?”
“I am seening idt.”