“Now, home like two arrows, and rouse your father, Leaping Buck,” whispered the trapper, “and keep well out o’ sight.”
Next moment, picking up his empty rifle, he stalked from the fringe of bushes that partially screened the cliff, and gave himself up.
“Ha! I know you—Mahoghany Drake! Is it not so?” cried Stalker, savagely. “Seize him, men. You shall swing for this, you rascal.”
Two or three of the robbers advanced, but Drake quietly held up his hand, and they stopped.
“I’m in your power, you see,” he said, laying his rifle on the ground. “Yes,” he continued, drawing his tall figure up to its full height and crossing his arms on his breast, “my name is Drake. As to Mahoghany, I’ve no objection to it though it ain’t complimentary. If, as you say, Mister Stalker, I’m to swing for this, of course I must swing. Yet it do seem raither hard that a man should swing for savin’ his friend’s life an’ his enemy’s at the same time.”
“How—what do you mean?”
“I mean that Mister Brixton is my friend,” answered the trapper, “and I’ve saved his life just now, for which I thank the Lord. At the same time, Stalker is my enemy—leastwise I fear he’s no friend—an’ didn’t I save his life too when I put a ball in his arm, that I could have as easily put into his head or his heart?”
“Well,” responded Stalker, with a fiendish grin, that the increasing pain of his wound did not improve, “at all events you have not saved your own life, Drake. As I said, you shall swing for it. But I’ll give you one chance. If you choose to help me I will spare your life. Can you tell me where Paul Bevan and his daughter are?”
“They are with Unaco and his tribe.”
“I could have guessed as much as that. I ask you where they are!”