When he felt the handle against his palm, he knew that he had been holding his breath, and that the sigh he gave was an involuntary relief that the others had not glimpsed the blade under his clasped fingers.

He would not have to dangle from that swinging rope, at any rate.
"Hello, pard!" Dade's voice called thickly from close behind.

"Looking for some rope ?" Jack turned his head just as the looped rawhide slithered past him and settled taut over the head of the startled buckskin.

Like a lightning gleam slashing through the dark he saw Dade's plan, and played his own part unhesitatingly.
Two movements he made while the buckskin sat back upon his haunches and gathered his muscles for a forward spring.

The first was to lean and send a downward sweep of the dagger across the rope by which Shorty was leading the horse, and the second was a backward lunge that drove the knife deep into the bared throat of the Captain, stunned into momentary inaction by the suddenness of Dade's assault.
The buckskin gave a mighty leap that caught Shorty unawares and sent him into a crumpled heap in the sand.