The branch cracked ominously.
With a shudder the Lone Scout looked down to the bottom of the abyss. No way of escape there. He looked up once more, and even as he looked Poisoned Pup raised his tomahawk to sever the frail branch.
“Perish! Paleface,” he hissed; “go down to the Gulf of the Lost Ones, and let the wolves pick clean your bones.”
Sureshot felt that his last hour had come.
“Accursed Redskin,” he cried, “do your worst. But beware, for I will be avenged. And now, O son of a dog, strike, strike!”
And there with gleaming eyes the intrepid scout waited for that glittering axe to fall.
End of chapter; the next of which artfully switches, and takes up another thread of the story.
The result of my effort was that in six days I produced Daredeath Dick, or the Scourge of the Sierras. Lorrimer was enthusiastic.
“Didn’t think you had it in you, old man. I’ll get it off to Shortcake & Hammer at once. It will likely be some weeks before we can hear from them.”
Since then I have been seeing quite a lot of Lorrimer. After all, our little apartment is cosiness itself, and beer at four sous a litre is ambrosia within reach of the most modest purse. He talks vastly of his work (with a capital W). He arrives with the announcement that he has just dropped in for a quiet pipe; in an hour he must be back at his Work. Then: “Well, old man, just another short pipe, and I must really be off.” But in the end he takes his departure about two in the morning, sometimes talking me asleep.