“First of all,” said the captain of the freighters, “I want you to take
command, Cody, as I said.”
“No, no!” the scout hastened to reply. “I would not take that upon
myself.”
“I insist.”
“No. I must be free myself to act in this other matter I speak of. If
I see a chance to run off the girl while you fellows are handling the
outlaws, I must do so.”
“And leave us for a redskin?”
“That is it,” returned Cody seriously. “My duty is first to her at this
time.”
“But that is nonsense, man! People of a blood should stick together.
Let the red squaw go.”
“She’s got white blood in her better than either yours or mine, sir!”
snapped the scout.
“Oh! she’s a half-breed?”
“She is. But I am not here to discuss White Antelope. Time is passing.
I will advise you to the best of my ability in this fight; but I cannot
accept the responsibility of command.”
“All I can do, then, is to rouse up the other boys and make ready to
receive boarders.”
“But there is more than one way of doing that,” said Cody, with a smile
which the other did not see in the dark tent.
“Heh?”
“No use in rousing out the other men in a way to show the outlaws you
are expecting them.”
“Oh, shucks! are they watching us already?”
“They sure are. All I feared in making my way to your tent was their
sharp eyes. I knew what your guards would be.”
“You don’t have a very high opinion of us mule-skinners, then?” said
the captain, rather sharply.
“I have a very poor opinion indeed of men who will be careless on this
trail,” said Buffalo Bill sternly. “Recklessness is never bravery.”
“Huh!” grunted the other.
“Cook, you creep out at the rear and speak to the sentinel at the back
of the camp. Keep close to the ground and tell him to have a care.
Let him step across and speak to the guard by the river--casually,
remember.”
“All right, sir,” said the cook, recognizing the tone of authority.
“Then you creep over to the farther tent and awaken the boys carefully.
The captain here had better attend to the other two. Go on your hands
and knees, boys! And don’t startle anybody. Have they got arms with
’em, or are they in the wagons?”
“Oh, they’ve got their rifles. I’m not quite a fool,” said the captain.
“Glad to hear that,” the scout returned, and did not stop to explain
whether he was rejoiced to hear that the men were properly armed, or
that the captain was not an entire ignoramus!
It was too serious a situation for the man to take open offense,
however. He, as well as the cook, did Cody’s bidding without further
remark. They crept from tent to tent, keeping well in the shadow,
while the first guard, warned by the cook, went across and warned the
man pacing the beat by the river.
Buffalo Bill was pretty confident that the outlaws would wait until the
sentinels were changed at midnight before attacking. That was the best
time for such a movement, for the new guards would be sleepy, and the
other men would have just settled into heavier sleep.
When the gang had been awakened the captain reported to the scout. Thus
far none of the boys had come out of the three larger tents, and they
were warned to keep under cover until they received the word.
“You don’t want to have your mules stampeded far,” said the scout.
“When the sentinels are changed, let one of those coming off duty step
out and lead in your bell-mare, and hobble her inside the line of the
wagons. Then you’ll be sure of her, and, even if the long-ears do run
away, they’ll come back again, come daybreak.”
The cook’s fire was already out, and Cody warned them to let the other
one burn down as low as it would. The more shadowy the camp was the
better the freighters could move about without attracting the notice of
any watching outlaws.
Cody remained in the little tent with the flap pinned back, and
the cook and the captain came to him and reported their missions
accomplished. Midnight came--it was not a long wait--and the sentinels
went to the tents and appeared to awaken those who were to relieve
them. Cody had particularly instructed the man who was to go to the
river-bank. One of the others brought in the gray mare. The camp
settled down to apparent quietude and peace again.
“Now, boys, to your places,” whispered the scout to the cook and the
captain. “Signal your men, captain; be ready to fling on the fire a
heap of that light stuff yonder when you hear me hoot, cook! All right!”
The captain crept out once more and scratched with his finger-nail upon
the canvas of each tent. At that the freighters began to wriggle out
from under the canvas and crawl on their bellies to shelter beneath the
wagons. Cody knew that the first fire of the outlaws would be aimed at
the tents. Boyd Bennett and his villains would expect to thus kill or
seriously wound several of the sleeping freighters and throw the others
into utter confusion.
Buffalo Bill remained no longer in the small tent himself. He crept
down to the river-bank, and he and the sentinel saw each other. Cody
expected a part of the attacking party would approach in the way he had
come to the camp, only from the other direction.
And this was a good guess. The outlaws--or several of them--dismounted
and came along under the bank. In fact, so sure were they of catching
the encampment asleep, that the scout heard their footsteps. They did
not take proper care in disguising them.
“Now, mister!” Buffalo Bill exclaimed, under his breath to the sentinel
near him.
Instantly this man dropped down in the grass, the other guard fell
flat, there was a sudden pounding of horse’ hoofs down the ridge from
the south and west. Then:
Bang! bang! bang!
A volley of rifle-shots tore through the tents inside the wagon-line.
Instantly the shrill yell of Buffalo Bill, the Border King, answered
the shots defiantly. The sound had often struck terror to the hearts of
his red foes, and it was not unknown to Boyd Bennett and his comrades.
“That hell-cat, Cody, is here!” screamed Bennett.
The cook flung the light brush on the fire. It blazed up almost
immediately, giving the men under the wagons a chance to see any of the
outlaws that might venture into the camp. But none of them reached the
inner circle. As those afoot sprang up the bank from the riverside,
Cody and the man with him shot them down, or drove them shrieking with
fear out of rifle-shot.
Pandemonium reigned for a few minutes, however. Although Boyd Bennett
yelled his warning, the gang did not give over the fight so easily.
They poured round after round of bullets into the camp; but at first
they did not realize that they were being answered from beneath the
wagons rather than from the tents.
Several of their ponies were shot down. Although the mules were
stampeded for a ways, the ruffians could make no good use of this fact.
Instead of catching the camp unawares, they were themselves ambushed,
thanks to the Border King!
“Escape, men! We are undone!” shrieked Boyd Bennett, at last.
He had seen four of his men fall never to rise again, and two others
had lost their mounts and had to spend precious moments in catching two
of their dead comrades’ horses. Back the decimated party fled over the
ridge.
The freighters poured in volley after volley upon the retreating
outlaws. But the captain would not let them mount such horses and mules
as they could catch and follow the crew. In this he got square with
Buffalo Bill for the scout’s sharp words.
In the height of the fight, after seeing that the freight crew were
more than a match for the outlaws, Buffalo Bill had slipped down under
the river-bank and had run at his best pace toward the spot where the
outlaws had been encamped earlier in the evening. There he had seen
White Antelope tied to a sapling so that she could not escape while
her captors tried their nefarious scheme of robbing and murdering the
freight-train crew.
Believing that Bennett would leave nobody to guard the girl, the scout
was bent upon reaching the place first and releasing her.
And this much he did accomplish: he reached the place first. But almost
as soon as he had recognized Buffalo Bill’s yell, Boyd Bennett spurred
back toward the bound girl. He feared the scout would do exactly the
thing he was attempting. Knowing that Cody must have followed them
here for the express purpose of saving White Antelope, he feared the
shrewdness of his enemy.
Cody found the spot. A camp-fire burned low, but revealed the girl
writhing in her bonds at one side. The scout bounded to her side just
as the thunder of Bennett’s horse sounded down the hill.
“All right, White Antelope! ’Tis I--the Long Hair!” whispered the
scout. “My horse is not far away. I will save you---- The devil!”
The scout broke off with a savage exclamation. He had hoped to slash
through the girl’s bonds and carry her to his horse, which he had left
in a thicket not far away. But for once in his life the scout had made
a terrible oversight!
Chief had picked up a small pebble in his hoof late that afternoon, and
Buffalo Bill had got down and pried it out with the point of his bowie.
He had stuck the knife into a sheath which hung to his saddle-bow, and
had forgotten it until this very instant. He had nothing with which to
cut the girl’s bonds.
Already the chief of the bandits was almost upon him. Boyd Bennett rode
down the hill yelling like a fiend.
“Fly!” murmured the girl. “They will kill you.”
“Curse it! I am foiled for the time. But, remember, White Antelope,
I am near you and will release you yet, and serve your enemy as he
deserves!”
With these words the scout dropped to all fours, and, as stealthily and
silently as a wolf, crept away in the darkness.