A RUNNING SKIRMISH.
“What’s that?” involuntarily exclaimed Nick, as he tried to make out the
nature of the object.
“Looks like a stale doughnut,” offered Patsy Garvan. “But the old guy
who dropped it is all in just the same.”
“Adil!” called out Jefferson Arnold.
“Hush!” warned Nick Carter. “Keep quiet till we see.”
“I do see,” insisted the impetuous millionaire. “That’s Adil, and I----”
“I’ll save him,” interrupted Nick. “But we’ve got to wait till we see
what is behind those trees.”
Jefferson Arnold recognized the justice of this, and restrained himself
from dashing out into the open, as he would have liked to do.
Adil seemed to have been released from his hypnotic trance by the jar of
the rifle report. He stood still and looked about him with a light of
intelligence in his eyes that had not been there before.
For a minute he seemed uncertain which way to go. Then, with a
half-uttered ejaculation, he sprang over the body of the medicine man
and the snake, and raced in the direction of the tree behind which Chick
was still crouching.
The report of the rifle, and perhaps its flash, was the guide to the
young East Indian, who, such a short time before, had been helpless,
with the venomous snake twined about his neck.
As he dashed across the clearing, he stooped and picked up something
about halfway. It was the object that had fallen from the dead snake
charmer’s fingers, and which Patsy had said looked like a stale
doughnut.
Holding this thing, whatever it was, tightly in his hand, the fugitive
kept on till he reached the edge of the open space.
“Come on, Adil!” shouted Jefferson Arnold, regardless of everything
except the fact that the young man was running to him. “This way, my
boy!”
Adil stumbled as he got to the shelter of the trees. Then, with a gasp
he fell into Arnold’s arms, in a dead faint.
“He isn’t hurt, is he?” asked Patsy, trying to see Adil’s face, but, of
course, failing, in the darkness. “What’s the trouble? Fainted?”
“Leave him to me,” returned the millionaire. “I’ll take care of him.”
“How?”
“Let me get any kind of a start, and I’ll have him to our camp and into
the boat before this gang can get out. There is a big crowd of rascals
in the wood, over there.”
“There’s no doubt about that,” observed Nick Carter. “We’ll hold them
there, too.”
“Sure we will!” declared Patsy energetically. “We can stand off all they
can bring over. Eh, Chick?”
“I guess,” was Chick’s brief reply, as he brought another cartridge
forward in his rifle. “You get, Mr. Arnold.”
“That’s what I’m doing,” was the pithy rejoinder.
He swung the light, but sinewy form of Adil over his shoulder, and broke
his way through the wood the way they had come. Jefferson Arnold was a
New York business man. But he had also hunted big game in several
countries, and he was a woodsman who knew the game.
Hardly had Arnold gone, when a crowd of dark-skinned men broke cover
across the clearing. They had knives and spears in their hands, and they
were bent on mischief.
“Let go, boys!” cried Nick Carter.
He fired his rifle as he spoke, and simultaneously there was a report
from the gun of each of his two assistants. They fired two more shots
apiece as fast as they could pump them out, and the Hindus stopped in
amazement that was dangerously near panic.
Yells of anger arose from them, but they did not seem to know what to do
in the face of this sudden attack by the white men.
Nick Carter and his two assistants took advantage of the check they had
given to dart to fresh cover, a hundred feet or so to the rear.
“It’s a good thing those dubs haven’t got guns,” remarked Patsy. “It’s a
wonder they haven’t. What do you think they are?”
“Just ordinary ruffians, I suppose,” returned Nick carelessly. “They may
be a gang from the hills, for anything I know. Look out! Here comes a
spear!”
It was immediately apparent that, although there were no guns in the
ranks of the dusky enemy, they could hurl spears with precision and
viciousness.
Four or five of these weapons--exceedingly dangerous when in skillful
hands--came hurtling among the trees.
The aim was good, too, for Chick had only just got behind a deodar when
two spears came singing along and stuck in the trunk of the tree just
where his head had been a moment before.
Patsy had a narrower escape than Chick, for one of the spears caught the
sleeve of his white linen coat and fastened it to the tree.
“Gee! There goes a new coat sleeve!” exclaimed Patsy, with comic anger.
“They’ve taken out a three-cornered bit just above the elbow, and I’ll
have to go in rags till I get to a city where I can buy another coat.
Holy mackerel! I’m always ‘it’ when there’s bad luck going about.”
Meanwhile, Chick found himself hard pressed. He could not get out from
behind his tree without offering himself as a target for a spear, and he
could not stay where he was indefinitely.
He had only six more shots left in the magazine of his rifle, and no
time to reload.
“I’ll give them all I’ve got,” he muttered. “If that doesn’t clear the
way, I’ll have to go out there and get into a rough-and-tumble scrap,
taking chances.”
He fired a couple of shots into the ranks of the oncoming Hindus, hoping
to hit some of them, but without knowing exactly where his bullets would
go. It was impossible to take steady aim under the circumstances, and he
did not try.
“I’ll fire low,” he thought. “That’s one of the fundamental rules in
sharpshooting. Then, if you hit anybody, you are pretty sure to do
something worth while.”
“Look out, Chick!” came excitedly from Patsy. “The woods are full of
them! Mind they don’t crawl up behind. Gee! Here’s where I’ll beat it
for the Bowery--or as near as I can get.”
“Back!” suddenly shouted Nick Carter. “Get back, both of you! They are
working around on my side. They’ll cut you off in another minute!”
“That’s what!” roared Patsy. “But we can do some cutting ourselves.
Whoop! Get out of my way! You black skunks! Come on, Chick!”
“Of course I will,” replied Chick, with the calmness of desperation. “I
hear them on my left, but they haven’t got us yet. Hold together, boys!
We’ll beat ’em!” he went on, hardly knowing, in his excitement, what he
said.
Sending one more shot in the general direction of the enemy, Chick
turned and lunged back into the darkness.
“Whoof!”
It was Nick Carter who made this involuntary ejaculation, for, in the
blackness, Chick had plunged headlong into him.
“I beg your pardon!” blurted out Chick.
“That’s right!” laughed his chief. “Never forget your manners, old man.
Bend low and run! It’s our only chance at this stage of the game.”
Side by side, the three detectives raced over the rotting undergrowth
and leaves, and it was surely luck that prevented any of them dashing
their brains out against some tree.
They had become somewhat used to the darkness by this time. What had
appeared at first as merely a black wall resolved itself now into a
forest, with trees spaced so that it was possible to get around them
with some ingenuity, plus a great deal of agility.
Dodging, swerving, stumbling over fallen limbs and upheaving roots,
occasionally gasping for breath, and conscious all the while that the
enemy was gaining, the trio rushed on.
Not only was there danger from those who were making a rear chase of it.
Some of the natives had flanked them. Their spears glistened as they
were brandished fiercely, while their owners uttered low guttural
threats which sounded supernaturally awful in the darkness.
Nick Carter had had experience enough as an army officer to know a great
deal about military strategy. He was aware that the menace of a flanking
movement was something whose importance no general overlooked.
If once the wings of their black pursuers outstripped them far enough to
close in and get them in a ring, they would be as helpless as rats in a
trap.
“Get to the river!” was Nick’s low-voiced instruction to his two
assistants.
“How far ahead is it?” asked Patsy. “I’ve lost track of distances since
I’ve been in this wood.”
“A hundred and fifty feet,” replied Chick. “Keep quiet! Don’t talk! Save
your breath!”
“I notice you’re not using any sign language yourself!” retorted Patsy.
“And you don’t sound as if you had more breath than the rest of us,
either.”
Patsy Garvan could not have kept out of an argument if there had been a
spear within six inches of his heart. He dearly loved the last word, no
matter where he was.
A sullen gleam of water could be made out through the tangle of trees.
Surely they could cover the short distance between them and their boat,
lying at the river bank before the foe cut them off.
They were not there yet, however.
A dark figure shot up ahead of the three flying detectives. Hardly had
this one figure come into view, when there was another and another.
“They’ve closed us in!” cried Chick. “Just what I was afraid of.”
“Looks like it,” assented Nick Carter. “Well, there’s only one thing to
do. We must rush them and take our chances of breaking through.”
“They’ll be taking the chances--not us!” shouted Patsy, with his usual
drive-ahead cocksureness. “We could lick that bunch if our arms were in
a sling.”
“Of course we can, but we’ll have to fight. There’s more of them every
moment. Blaze away, both of you, and fire from the hip. Don’t take the
time to aim. After that, revolvers! Come on, boys!”
Nick Carter’s tone was full of confidence, and his two assistants would
have charged a regiment at that instant.
Several spears whizzed in front. But the darkness caused them all to go
wild, although they were near enough to be uncomfortable. Patsy insisted
afterward that one scraped the skin off the end of his nose and mussed
his hair.
“Here you are!” shouted Nick. “There’s a hole in their line.”
“Where?” questioned Patsy.
“If you don’t see it, make one!” snapped Chick. “Rush through somehow!”
Shoulder to shoulder, Nick Carter and his two men charged at the yelling
natives and went through their formation like the center rush in a
varsity football game.
It was at this moment that they heard Jefferson Arnold roaring
excitedly:
“Swing to the right, Carter! Swing out to the right!”
The three obeyed this injunction, just as there came some more flying
spears.
At the same instant two rifles spoke from the river bank. The shots took
the Hindus by surprise, and for a few seconds they were completely
demoralized.
Nick and his two assistants dashed through the undergrowth and gained
the edge of the wood. They caught a glimpse of the river and their boat,
with the four oarsmen seated, ready to row away at the word of command.
Patsy gave a low chuckle of satisfaction. As he said afterward, that
boat, with the four black men as crew, looked very good to him just
then.
Standing on the bank, close to the boat, were Jefferson Arnold and Jai
Singh, each with a rifle in his hand. It was their shots that had taken
the nerve out of the enemy.
“Jump for the boat!” bellowed Jefferson Arnold.
“Jump!” echoed Jai Singh.
They did jump.