The Border King did not pick his way as he spurred the great white
horse down the declivity after the flying Indian girl. He allowed Chief
to guide himself, for he felt confidence in the horse’s sense. They
went down the hill like an avalanche, and an avalanche of small stones
and broken brush went with them.
To the troopers behind on the ridge, to the defenders of the fort, and
to the Indians themselves who saw the charge of the big white horse, it
seemed that neither horse nor rider could reach the bottom alive.
But Chief did not even lose his stride in going down, and at the
bottom, in answer to a sharp tug on the rein, he turned and shot away
along the trail after the disappearing White Antelope.
Oak Heart and his braves saw the act, and knew Cody’s reason for
chasing the young squaw. Half the army of Sioux would have started in
pursuit; but Dick Danforth’s troopers were sweeping down the hill by a
smoother road, and would cut the Indians off from the entrance to the
cañon. The reds were balked.
Dick Danforth’s blood was up. He had been born a Western boy, and, as
he had intimated in his recent conversation with Cody, he had bitter
reason to hate the redskins. He had been made an orphan, and his young
life ruined, by these very Sioux.
He spoke to the bugler, and the wild notes of the charge rang out
across the valley. Two score the troopers numbered, and there were five
or six hundred Indians against them; but the bold fellows were ready to
dash into the midst of the redskins.
Besides, Major Baldwin, seeing what desperate chances the troopers
from Fort Resistence were taking, ordered Captain Ed. Keyes to charge
with every able-bodied cavalryman the stockade contained. The fort
gates were flung open, and out upon the Indians, already wavering and
uncertain, charged Keyes and his troop, sabers in hand. They had no
ammunition, but they wielded their sabers like fiends. The Indians,
most of them unmounted, were borne down, trampled under the feet of
the big cavalry horses, and slashed unmercifully on one side by Keyes,
while Danforth came up on the other, his men shooting at short range
with carbines and pistols, and finally taking to the sword also.
And while this wild carnage was in progress, Buffalo Bill and the White
Antelope were racing along the trail in the cañon, the girl intent
upon carrying her father’s message and arousing the redskins lying in
ambush miles away, while the scout was just as determined that, without
injuring her, she should be kept from carrying out her plan.
It was still dark down here in the cañon. Although the sun was already
showing his red face above the eastern hills, as yet there was not
light enough to dissipate the gloom at the bottom of this deep cut in
the hills. Indeed, Buffalo Bill followed the girl more by sense of
sound than sense of sight for the first half-mile.
Then the pace of the great white horse told. His stride was too much
for the Indian pony, no matter how cruelly White Antelope lashed it.
Steadily the scout drew nearer.
The gray light filtered down from above and showed to the scout the
young squaw turning her head again and again to watch the progress
of her pursuer. She was evidently measuring with fearful glance the
rapidly lessening distance between them.
Buffalo Bill might easily have killed her as she leaned forward on her
pony’s neck, urging him with whip and voice. His face was very set and
stern, too; but the sternness was not that which masked his countenance
when he was bent upon an enemy’s death.
He saw, indeed, the frightened maiden before him, flying madly from his
approach; but his mind was laboring with thoughts which carried him
back for many years--thoughts which had often embittered his mind and
robbed him of his rest at night. He remembered this beautiful girl’s
mother and how he would have saved her from her awful fate; yet that
was not to be! And here he was pursuing the daughter--yet in a far
different manner.
The girl looked back again. Her beautiful face had paled, losing all
its naturally rich coloring. Although Buffalo Bill had held her in
his power only the day before and had not harmed her, this wild child
of the forest and plain saw no reason for his sparing her now. And,
indeed, there _was_ no apparent reason. She saw in his attempt to
capture her instead of killing her outright, merely the desire of the
warrior to parade a captive before his admiring brethren, and then,
perhaps, she would be made a slave as the redskins made slaves of the
white squaws they stole!
White Antelope had no reason for believing in the honor and tenderness
of white men. She had been taught from childhood that they were her
deadly enemies. Her mother had died too soon after her birth to instil
into the maiden’s mind any different belief than that held by the
savages about her.
So the girl looked back at Cody in terror, and made up her savage mind
to die rather than be captured by the scout.
But she would sell her life dearly as may be. The day before Long
Hair, as she called him, had disarmed her of the light revolver which
had been a most precious possession. Now she had only her bow and
arrows--a weapon that is not easily used in shooting behind one while
the pony is at full speed.
But this was what the girl tried to do. She strung her bow and seized
an arrow from the quiver which hung over her shoulder. Then, while the
pony was still paddling along the trail at his best pace, she turned
her agile young body about, drew the shaft to its head, and let drive
at the coming scout.
He ducked as he saw her action; but the shaft went through his hat and
carried it away. Instantly she fitted another arrow to the bowstring
and sent it likewise at her enemy. Cody slipped over on the far side
of Chief, hanging by toe and one hand to the running animal, an Indian
trick that no brave could do better than the scout himself. The second
shaft went over his saddle in about the place his heart might have been
had he been sitting upright!
The Indian maiden was not to be balked so easily. She turned again to
urge her pony on, hoping, it is likely, that Long Hair would bob up
into the saddle again. But he saw she had a third arrow on the string,
and he remained where he was.
But to tamely endure such a persecution as this was not the scout’s
intention. Besides, he feared that the White Antelope might shoot Chief.
As he slung himself over the side of the big white horse, Cody had
drawn one of the loaded pistols from its holster. With this gun he was
a marvelously accurate shot. It had a barrel almost as long as the
old-fashioned derringer, and in the hand of a trained marksman could do
the execution of a finely sighted rifle.
Under the horse’s neck he had a very clear view of the girl on the
pony in front, although she could not easily aim at any vital part of
the scout in the position in which he hung from Chief. As the young
squaw turned sidewise to larrup her pony again with the quirt hanging
to her wrist, Buffalo Bill took a snap shot at the quiver of arrows at
her back.
It was a perilous shot--if he did not wish to harm the girl. Few
marksmen would have dared try it. William Tell was a bungler, indeed,
as compared with some of the marksmen of our great West, and William F.
Cody was, in his day, the best of them all!
His pistol ball sped true. The thong from which the quiver hung was
severed, and if the hot lead seared the girl’s shoulder in passing it
did no more!
The quiver fell to the ground; but the girl had still a remaining
arrow--it was already upon her bowstring. She turned swiftly to drive
it home--perhaps into the heart of the great white horse that bore her
enemy so swiftly.
Buffalo Bill realized the danger to his noble steed. He sprang upright
into the saddle, the smoking pistol still in his hand. His appearance
as a fair target attracted the Indian maiden’s aim. She drew the
arrowhead to her ear.
But the white man’s pistol spoke before she could release the feathered
shaft.
Crack!
The long-barreled revolver spit its death-dealing bullet, and the smoke
enveloped Buffalo Bill’s head for a moment and then passed away.
Twang!
That was the snap of the bowstring. But the arrow flew wildly in the
air, over the scout’s head. The bullet had severed the deer tendon of
which the string was made just as the girl released the shaft. Buffalo
Bill had taken another desperate shot--and had won. The bow was put out
of commission, but the bullet had not touched the fair user of the bow.
White Antelope threw away her broken implement in wrath, and lashed her
pony again. But he, poor creature, was coming to the end of his leash.
His little legs could not carry even so light a burden as herself much
farther.
Buffalo Bill saw that this was so, and he spoke to Chief, dropping the
pistol back into its holster again. The great white horse redoubled his
effort. He shot along the trail as though he was fresh from the stable.
This spurt of speed brought the scout beside the Indian girl and her
mount so quickly that White Antelope had no time to cast herself to the
ground as she had intended. Even as she screamed and would have leaped
to certain death, the white horse came neck and neck with her mount,
Cody leaned over and seized her around the waist with his right arm,
and, drawing his pistol this time with his left hand, shot the Indian
pony through the head!
He could not afford to have the relieved beast run on to the ambushed
Indians miles up the cañon and so warn them of what was being done. The
pony staggered on a few yards and fell dead. Chief leaped the fallen
body and then came to a stop.
Meanwhile, the young squaw had been struggling in Cody’s grasp. She had
one more weapon, and out it flashed from the bead-worked sheath at her
side. It was a keen scalping-knife, and with a single downward thrust
she might have ended Cody’s earthly career.
However, the scout was watching for just this little play. As the
bright blade descended toward his breast, he caught the point upon his
pistol. The blade snapped, and with a single blow he knocked the handle
and butt of the blade from the girl’s hand!
“The White Antelope is in Long Hair’s power. Let her lie quietly,”
commanded the scout in Sioux.
He placed the girl before him, picked up Chief’s bridle, turned the
horse about, and they started down the cañon again. The girl did not
struggle now, or seek to escape. She was beaten. He could feel her body
shake with emotion; but true to Indian custom and tradition, she did
not weep.
Cody feared that some of the Indians might have got by Dick
Danforth and entered the cañon to follow him; so he went back very
circumspectly. If he was caught between two fires he could merely sell
his life as dearly as possible; but he would have kept the men in
ambush from coming to the help of their tribesmen in time to do any
good.
Soon the noise of battle reached their ears. The girl gave no sign of
interest, nor did Cody speak to her. In truth, the scout had a bitter
problem to consider.
What should he do with the girl? She was in his power. At least, he had
separated her from her father and from her Indian friends. But was the
time ripe for her to be introduced to white people--to those in Fort
Advance, for instance?
It was a time when men’s passions were deeply stirred. There would be
murder and hatred in the hearts of the whites as well as in that of the
redskins. Of what good to bring this half-breed girl into contact with
whites who felt a desire to kill every creature with Indian blood in
its veins? And why take the girl away from the red men at the moment
when her own heart was bitter as gall toward the whites? What good
would come of such an act? Buffalo Bill’s good sense answered for him:
“None!”
Nor did the whites desire her as a hostage. To hold her prisoner would
be to strengthen her affiliation with the Sioux. No, no! She must go
free--if Cody were free himself.
This question could not be answered until he had ridden to the end of
the cañon, and he went on very circumspectly.