Drake sighed sleepily, and gave a short and intensely subdued cough, as he turned his lips to a brown ear which seemed to rise out of the grass for the purpose, and spoke something that was inaudible to all save that ear. Instantly hand, lips, and ear withdrew, leaving the trapper in apparently deep repose. A sharp knife, however, had touched his bonds, and he knew that he was free.
A few minutes later, and the same hand touched Tom Brixton’s arm. He would probably have betrayed himself by an exclamation, but remembering Drake’s “Be ready,” he lay perfectly still while the hands, knife, and lips did their work. The latter merely said, in broken English, “Rise when me rise, an’ run!”
Next instant Unaco leaped to his feet and, with a terrific yell of defiance, bounded into the bushes. Tom Brixton followed him like an arrow, and so prompt was Mahoghany Drake to act that he and Tom came into violent collision as they cleared the circle of light thrown by the few sinking embers of the camp-fires. No damage, however, was done. At the same moment the band of Indians in ambush sprang up with their terrible war whoop, and rushed towards the camp. This effectually checked the pursuit which had been instantly begun by the surprised bandits, who at once retired to the shelter of the mingled rocks and shrubs in the centre of the hollow, from out of which position they fired several tremendous volleys.
“That’s right—waste yer ammunition,” said Paul Bevan, with a short laugh, as he and the rest lay quickly down to let the leaden shower pass over.
“It’s always the way wi’ men taken by surprise,” said Drake, who, with Brixton and the chief, had stopped in their flight and turned with their friends. “They blaze away wildly for a bit, just to relieve their feelin’s, I s’pose. But they’ll soon stop.”
“An’ what’ll we do now?” inquired Flinders, “for it seems to me we’ve got all we want out o’ them, an’ it’s no use fightin’ them for mere fun—though it’s mesilf that used to like fightin’ for that same; but I think the air of Oregon has made me more peaceful inclined.”
“But the country has been kept for a long time in constant alarm and turmoil by these men,” said Fred Westly, “and, although I like fighting as little as any man, I cannot help thinking that we owe it as a duty to society to capture as many of them as we can, especially now that we seem to have caught them in a sort of trap.”
“What says Mahoghany Drake on the subject!” asked Unaco.
“I vote for fightin’, ’cause there’ll be no peace in the country till the band is broken up.”
“Might it not be better to hold them prisoners here?” suggested Paul Bevan. “They can’t escape, you tell me, except by this side, and there’s nothin’ so good for tamin’ men as hunger.”