"There are green hides there!" he exclaimed, stepping back. "Jack, slip that pack off!"
The man started forward, crying out that he had no time to waste, but Murphy jerked him back by the collar and Elerson seized his right arm.
"Wait!" I said, sharply. "You cannot stop a man like this on the highway!"
"You don't know us, sir," replied Mount, impudently.
"Come, Colonel Ormond," added Elerson, almost savagely. "You're our captain no longer. Give way, sir. Answer for your own men, and we'll answer to Danny Morgan!"
Mount, struggling to unfasten the pack, looked over his huge shoulders at me.
"Not that we're not fond of you, sir; but we know this old fox now--"
"You lie!" shrieked the man, hurling his full weight at Murphy and tearing his right arm free from Elerson's grip.
There came a flash, an explosion; through a cloud of smoke I saw the fellow's right arm stretched straight up in the air, his hand clutching a smoking pistol, and Elerson holding the arm rigid in a grip of steel.