As Red Dick, clinging with one hand to the branches and with the other to his horse’s bridle, was about to launch himself into the saddle, the second derelict struck the taut lariats, and carried the roots of the first tree downstream, while the top in which Red Dick was perched swept upstream against the current at ten miles an hour.
The horse was swept under and Red Dick doused to the top of his sombrero. But he clung to the branches and came up sputtering and gasping.
The horse arose and gained the bank, where it began to crop the grass unconcernedly.
The anchor ropes had snapped under the strain, and the second tree had sailed on, but the first still clung to the rock, only it had changed position, and, instead of being across the current, the heavier root held its place downstream, and the top bobbed up and down in the washing waves above the rocks.
There Red Dick clung desperately and bellowed for help. The water forced him in among the branches, so that he could not pull himself up over them and gain anything like a comfortable position on top. And now and then the surging waters seemed to delight in lifting the butt and roots of the tree and ducking the red topknot of Dick in the murky depths.
At this stage a second party of horsemen appeared at the ford, on the side where the scout and Cayuse sat watching the fun. It was Fighting Dan and half a dozen well-armed sheepmen who had evidently set out for town.
They took in the situation and Red Dick’s predicament. Fighting Dan slid from his saddle and haw-hawed long and loud, slapping his buckskins and shaking his head in glee. His men, too, joined in a merry chorus, but kept their fingers on the triggers of their rifles, for across the river were twice their number of the enemy.
“So yer lookin’ fer me, are ye, Red?” yelled Dan, his voice echoing above the roar of the angry waters.
Red couldn’t reply just then, for one of his periodical duckings was coming.
When he came up choking, Fighting Dan resumed: