Swinger's aid, as she fell.
"Look here, you cussed villain," said Jerry Swinger, who, in the
struggle, had got his antagonist under him, and had drawn from his
pocket a long clasp-knife, "if you stir an inch, I'll put this
blood-sucker through your shrivelled-up gizzard!"
Vernon attempted to rise, bowie-knife in hand, to the conflict. Jerry
Swinger was about to put his threat in execution, when Maxwell,
released, by the fall of the woman, from danger in that quarter, struck
him a heavy blow upon the head with the pistol in his hand. The woodman
sunk back, with a groan, and Vernon, rising from his fallen posture, was
about to plunge the knife to his heart, when a new actor appeared upon
the stage. The blade of Vernon was arrested in its deadly descent, and a
single blow from the fist of the new-comer laid the black-leg prostrate
by the side of the woodman. Maxwell was thrown off his guard by the
suddenness of the new assailant's movements, and, before he could raise
his pistol,--his only dependence,--it was wrested from him. The
new-comer threw the pistol down, and, seizing the attorney by the neck,
and applying a smart blow with the knee upon his back, he brought him to
the floor.
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