Читать книгу Buffalo Bill's Weird Warning; Or, Dauntless Dell's Rival онлайн

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“They can’t salt me,” he muttered, “but I may be able to salt one of them with lead.”

He paused long enough to chance a shot from his six-shooter. A yell of pain came from Clancy. The shotgun clattered to the rocks, and he grabbed at his right arm.

The other two men thereupon began using their revolvers, accompanying their shooting with savage yells.

Wild Bill, pushing flat against the foot wall, deliberately snuffed the two candles that remained alight. His wrist had been grazed by one of the ruffians’ bullets, but it was a small injury, and he gave it scant attention.

As soon as the level was entirely plunged in darkness, he ran on to the shaft which, by then, was only a few feet away.

The time had passed for fighting. It was up to him to retreat, and to see how quick he could get to the top of the shaft, and out of it.

Jabbing his revolver back into his belt, he laid hold of the rope and started aloft, hand over hand.

Clancy and the rest, meanwhile, had not remained inactive. They must have been considerably in the dark as to the identity of their enemy, but they realized that he had caught them red-handed, and that the success of their whole plot might hang on their capturing him. Therefore they pushed forward desperately, Clancy in a rage because of his wound. Tex and Andy, having revived sufficiently from the sledge-hammer blows they had received, had joined the others.