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Westerfelt tried to shake him off, but he was unsuccessful. He attempted to strike him in the face, but Wambush either dodged the thrusts or caught them in his thick hair. It seemed that Westerfelt's only chance now was to throw his assailant down, but his strength had left him, Wambush's claws had sunk into his neck like prongs of steel. He could not breathe.
"Not this chicken," a voice muttered, and a white form whipped his horse over to Wambush's. "I'm with you," said another. Then there was a clamor of voices, and all the gang gathered round Wambush. He chuckled and swore softly. "That's the stuff!" he said. "Them's Cohutta men a-talkin'; you kin bet yore sweet life." Harriet turned to Westerfelt. "They are drinking," she said.
"Let go that knife!" The sheriff spoke the last word almost in a scream, and he beat Wambush's knuckles so furiously that the knife fell to the ground. He then pinned Toot's legs to the earth with his knees, and held the knife up to a man in the crowd. "Keep it jest like it is fur evidence," he panted. "Don't shet it up or tetch the blade." Disarmed, Wambush seemed suddenly overcome with fear.
They swung back and forth and from side to side, but they were well mated. Westerfelt suddenly threw his left leg behind Wambush's heels and began to force him backward. In an instant Wambush would have gone down, but seeing his danger he wriggled out of Westerfelt's grasp, drew something from his coat pocket, and sprang towards him. "Knife! knife! knife!" cried Luke Bradley in alarm. "Part 'em!"
Drap that gun, an' fight like a man ur not at all!" Wambush's eye ran along the revolver, following every movement of Westerfelt's with the caution of a panther watching dangerous prey. "One more inch and you are a dead man!" he said, slowly. Mrs. Floyd, who was on the veranda, cried out and threw her arms round Harriet, who seemed ready to run between the two men.
"Can you see who's behind us?" asked Jennie, mischievously. "It's undoubtedly a case; they've been connoodlin' all the way an' didn't even have the politeness to speak to us as we passed 'em in the big road." Westerfelt pretended not to hear. Old Wambush's wagon had started. The camp-ground was soon reached.
The sheriff was becoming angered. He grasped Wambush's hand and tried to take the knife away, but Toot's fingers were like coils of wire. "I'll see you damned fust!" grunted Wambush, and, powerless to do anything else, he spat in the sheriff's face. "d n you, I'll kill you!" roared Warlick, and he struck Wambush on the jaw.
Surely a girl who had, scarcely six weeks before, sobbed in old Wambush's arms about her love for his son could not feel anything deeply pertaining to another man whom she had known such a short time. "Let's go back," he proposed, suddenly, and almost brutally. "I reckon we've gone far enough. Night comes on mighty quick here in the valley."
He did not reply, but took the paper absently and thrust it into his coat pocket. It had fallen from Wambush's pocket. He was very white and leaned heavily against a sycamore-tree. "Oh, he's cut your coat; look!" Harriet cried. Still he did not speak. He looked down at the slit in the cloth and raised his hand towards it, but his arm fell limply and he swayed from side to side.
Westerfelt advanced towards Wambush, but when he was within a few feet of him, Wambush suddenly drew a revolver, cocked it, and deliberately raised it. Westerfelt stopped and looked straight into Wambush's eyes. "I'm unarmed," said he; "I never carry a pistol; is that the way you do your fighting?" "That's yore lookout, not mine, d n you!"
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