The Border King, after leaving Texas Jack in the cañon, did not spare
the white horse he rode, for he was riding to save many human lives.
He had known this horse when he was the favorite steed of Colonel
Nelson A. Miles, and the scout well knew the endurance of which the
horse was capable.
The creature had been captured by Oak Heart, the king of the Utah
Sioux, in an attack on a military camp, and Colonel Miles had told
Cody to try and get him back from his Indian master.
“I hate to think of the old fellow being handled by that red scamp. Get
him back, Cody, and he’s yours,” the colonel had told the scout.
And now Buffalo Bill had the long-barreled, strong-limbed racer under
him, and he was proving himself as fleet as a deer and as tireless as a
hound.
“The colonel used to call you Runaway, I remember,” said the scout,
talking aloud to the handsome creature, and patting the side of his
neck with a tender hand, “and what Oak Heart christened you I don’t
know, but I shall call you after your redskin master, and it shall be
Chief.”
The horse snorted and tossed his head as though he understood what was
being said to him, and hour after hour, mile after mile, he kept up his
steady lope--that long, free canter that takes the Western range horse
over so long a trail in so short a time.
Darkness fell soon after Cody rode away from Texas Jack. He hoped to
reached the military post for which he aimed before midnight. And he
was not mistaken. The new day had not commenced when the scout on his
white charger thundered up to the gates of Fort Resistence.
“Halt! Who comes here?” rang out the sentinel’s challenge.
“All right, pard! This is Scout Cody with an urgent message for the
commander. Let me in!”
“By thunder! Is it really you, Buffalo Bill?” cried the sentinel over
the gate.
“What’s left of me after about the hardest day’s work of my life.”
“Injuns?”
“And a-plenty of them. Hurry up, old man! This is no place for gossip,”
urged the scout.
“Wait till I call the corporal,” exclaimed the curious sentinel. Then:
“Corporal of the guard! Corporal of the guard! Rouse up, corporal!
There’s somebody at the gate!”
Half the garrison was aroused by the shouting. The corporal came on the
run, saw who it was without, and let the scout and his dripping horse
within.
“Injuns, sure, Cody?” asked those who were awake.
“Fort Advance has been surrounded for three days by a thousand red
devils under Oak Heart!” exclaimed Cody to the officer on duty. “I must
see Colonel Royal at once.”
The commander of the fort had gotten out of bed already, and he
received the scout in his nightshirt.
“Is this true, Cody?” he cried. “Is Major Baldwin threatened?”
“Why, sir, your scouts must have been hived up for a week past if they
haven’t seen Injun signs,” said Cody earnestly. “For three days the
Sioux have held the garrison of Fort Advance prisoners, and five men
have been killed trying to get to you. They’re pretty nearly out of
ammunition.”
“My God, Cody! You astonish me. I’ve had the scouts working through the
country on the other side, trusting to hear from you if anything went
wrong in the direction of Advance.”
“I’ve been to Denver, sir. Just got back to-day. I managed to run in
half a packload of ammunition that I had cached, and then Texas Jack
and I got through the lines again late this afternoon and--here I am!”
“Texas Jack! He’s not killed, I hope?”
“I don’t know. The reckless fellow _would_ try to go back to cheer the
fort with the news that I had got away safely.”
“That’s enough now, Bill. You’ll get something to eat, and if you are
going back with the men I send----”
“You bet I am. I got a fellow to rub Chief down, and he’ll be good for
it.”
“Your horse? Well, I’m off to see things prepared.”
The energetic commander at once ordered his adjutant to call out two
troops of cavalry, mount two companies of infantry, and, with a couple
of light guns, to start to the reenforcement of Fort Advance. Extra
supplies and ammunition were to be taken in ambulances.
Captain Alfred Taylor, of the Fifth Cavalry, was given command of the
expedition, and ordered to start within the hour. They tried to get
Cody to take some rest, for more than twenty-four hours the scout had
been active, most of the time in the saddle, and part of the time
fighting for his very life, but he was determined to go back with the
party of reenforcements.
When it pulled out from Post Resistence Buffalo Bill rode ahead as
guide, while half a dozen of Colonel Royal’s scouts went along to guard
the flanks, and to clear out the cañon when they came to it. Cody felt
that Oak Heart, knowing that the white men had got through his lines
and were probably making for Resistence, might send a part of his force
forward to meet any rescue party coming to the aid of the garrison of
Fort Advance.
And the wise scout had not been mistaken in this. Perhaps one reason
why Texas Jack had succeeded so easily in returning to Fort Advance
was because the king of the Sioux had drawn off quite three hundred of
his braves for special duty, and sent them along the track toward Fort
Resistence.
The easiest and shortest trail between the two forts was through the
cañon, and this Oak Heart well knew. He ordered the chiefs in charge of
the three hundred to ambush the rescue-party near the entrance to the
cañon at the other end, and not long before Cody and the other scouts,
riding ahead of Captain Taylor’s command, came within shouting distance
of the cañon the bloodthirsty savages were hidden among the rocks and
trees on the sloping sides, ready to pour a deadly fire into the band
of rescuers when they came along the trail beneath them.
While yet the scouts were some distance from the cañon something
startled them ahead. Tearing along the trail toward them came a herd of
deer, frightened from their night’s lair by something untoward.
“Now, what under the canopy started _them_ to running?” asked Cody, who
never let anything go past him unexplained.
“Wolves, it’s likely,” said one of the Resistence scouts named Judd.
“Haven’t heard a wolf howl to-night,” declared Buffalo Bill.
“You’re right there, pard,” said another scout, Barney by name.
“And there was no critter on the trail of those white-tails,” said a
third man.
“That means Injuns, then,” declared Barney.
“I reckon you’re right, boys,” said the Border King. “Let’s see. Those
deer came directly from the cañon.”
“You bet they did.”
“Something doing there, then, boys.”
“I reckon you’re right, Buffler.”
“Here, Barney, you ride back and tell Captain Taylor to halt his
column. Judd, you and I leave our horses here and go ahead to
reconnoiter. Savvy?”
“Sure!”
Barney rode back. Judd and Buffalo Bill discarded their mounts and went
ahead afoot.
Oak Heart was a born general, and, like old Colorow, of the Utes,
displayed abilities in planning his campaigns that placed him head
and shoulders above the average redskin chieftain. There have
been few great warriors among the red Indians. Red Jacket, Black
Eagle, Tecumseh, Colorow, and a few others have possessed unnatural
characteristics for redskins, and that is why they left their mark on
Indian history.
And Oak Heart had sufficient control over his warriors to make them do
something which above all things a redskin hates. He made them fight at
night!
Now, the Indian is a spiritualist of the most pronounced breed. By day
the spirits of the dead, and those powerful beings which he believes
control men’s affairs, sleep; by night these supernatural beings
walk abroad, and no Southern darky is more afraid of seeing a ghost
than a redskin. The medicine chiefs, who are, most of them, a set of
unconscionable fakers, foster this belief in ghosts and evil spirits
and so prey on the tribes.
Indians often select the hour just before dawn to strike their enemies,
because at that time man usually sleeps more deeply. But to make a
forced march and lay an ambuscade in the middle of the night--well,
this proved Oak Heart’s mastery of his tribe. Buffalo Bill suspected
that the herd of deer had been frightened by something more than a
single redskin--or a small scouting-party of them. He knew Oak Heart’s
abilities and respected them. Rash as the scout might be at times, he
never took foolish chances. To lead the rescue-party into the head of
the cañon might bring it to complete ruin.
“Judd! you take the west side of that gorge, and I’ll go east,” he
commanded his brother scout.
“How’ll I communicate? Signal?”
“No! If there are many of the reds they have already frightened
away most of the small animals that we might imitate, and to give a
bird-call would utterly ruin us. No bird will be waking up at this time
o’ night--ugh!”
“Well, what then?” demanded the other.
“Never mind what you find, keep still. Meet me here--in twenty minutes
if possible; not later than half an hour from now, at most.”
“Half an hour?”
“Yep. And remember, a confounded lot can happen in half an hour,” added
Cody, with a chuckle.