One of the men started to jump up and run, but Nomad’s fist shot out like a battering-ram, and the villain pitched head first down the rocky side of the dump.
The men across the cañon did not dare shoot at the trapper for fear of wounding their friends. Nomad understood this, and took full benefit of the grace allowed him.
The scoundrel who still remained on the dump chanced to be Seth Coomby. Nomad dropped a heavy knee on Coomby’s chest, and ripped the revolvers out of his hands. Shoving one revolver into the breast of his shirt, he picked Coomby up by the scruff of the neck, held him in front as a breastwork, and started down the slope, firing as he went, and forcing Coomby ahead of him.
But Nomad was not making for the boulders where the scout had taken refuge, but for the other side of the cañon, where Lawless and the rest of his men were doing their fighting.
It was a reckless piece of work on Nomad’s part. The old trapper, however, was filled with rage at the way Lawless and his men had treated him. He wanted to play “even,” and was willing to take chances to do so.
Hardly had Nomad reached the bottom of the ore-dump, when Wild Bill showed himself on the platform. Whether the outlaws were too much occupied watching Nomad’s work with Coomby, or whether they were paralyzed at Wild Bill’s appearance, yet the fact remains that they did not fire at him.
Coomby’s companion on the ore-dump—none other than the man who has figured as “Andy”—had dropped one of his revolvers at the time he was overturned by the old trapper’s fist.
Wild Bill’s quick eye caught sight of the weapon, and he picked it up, flourished it in the air with a yell, and leaped after Nomad toward the opposite side of the cañon.
The scout, witnessing the trend of affairs, decided that he ought to take part in the charge of his pards. Unless the attack was hotly pressed, neither Nomad nor Wild Bill would come out of the skirmish alive.
At the very moment when Buffalo Bill threw himself across the boulders, a thump of horses’ feet came from down the cañon.