Suddenly, through the air came the whirr of that deadly missile whose work we have already seen.
Jack instinctively threw up his hand, but too late.
The fatal coil struck his meager length of throat, and the leaden ball revolving with great rapidity drew it tighter and tighter at each revolution.
Old Jack saw the Canyon Tiger fade into indistinctness; darkness came down the sides of the gulch like a descending pall; he reeled and tried to shriek. Rising in his heavy stirrups, he clutched the deadly cord, and attempted to tear it from his throat.
Tom turned away, and several Indian-like figures leaped from the shadows.
The three Canyon Wolves darted toward the writhing man, and the foremost fired point-blank at him with a revolver.
Old Jack’s hand dropped from the cord, and his horse sprung forward. Then bang! bang went two more pistols, as the pebbles were loosened by the iron-shod feet, and the victim of the Thugs disappeared from view.
“But if Old Jack Drivewell gets over it, there’ll be a general settlement one of these days in Cut-throat Canyon. Now listen to me: we encountered a boy an’ a gal last night. You gave the beauty the string, but the boy got away. He is the chap I am looking for. Mind you, _I_ am to settle with him. If you catch him--and catch him you must--you shall bring him to me. Do you understand?”
“We hear our chief,” said Lodgepole. “He shall give the boy the cord.”
“That is it,” cried Tom, delightedly. “We understand each other now.”
Quick as thought every Thug turned his face upward, for the voice had come from the star-kissing cliffs overhead.
The next instant a wild cry leaped from the throats of all, and the Thugs dodged shudderingly.
As for Tom Terror, he fairly shrieked as he ducked his unhandsome head, and the next second a stone which would have crushed a giant grazed his hat and was shivered on the bed of the canyon.
“Great Jove! missed by a hair!” gasped the Tiger, and the spurring that he administered to his horse carried him many rods from the almost fatal spot.
Then, white-faced and gasping, he drew rein, and looked up at the cliffs overhead.
“It warn’t the boy,” he said. “The voice didn’t sound like a human one. I’d call it a speerit, if speerits could handle sich rocks as that. Whar ar’ the boys with the strings?”