“What’s the matter with ye?” scowled Banks. “What have I ever done to you that you make a play like this?”
“Never you mind that for now. I feel hostile enough to put a bullet into you, right where you stand, on account of the way you treated my little Piute pard. Are you coming?”
“Your hand has the call,” grunted Banks. “Sure I’m coming.”
He moved toward the scout, but slowly.
“I reckon I’ll have to plant a little lead around your feet so’st to make ’em more lively,” remarked Buffalo Bill. “Step off, high, wide, and handsome. Try it, now, before my patience begins to mill. You’re slower than molasses in zero weather.”
The man increased his pace. When he had come within a couple of yards of the scout, something happened which the scout had not been expecting.
“Up with your hands, pilgrim! That’s my pard ye’re a-drawin’ a bead on.”
This raucous voice came from behind. A thrill ran through the scout’s nerves as he began to understand what Dell’s dumb-show meant.
She had been trying to tell him that another of the ruffians was coming.
The man had come, and was now in the scout’s rear.