The gang of outlaws had been depleted by five. One had fallen on the
river-bank, and four others had either been killed or so badly wounded
that they fell captive to the freighters on the side of the ridge.
There were but eight who gathered about the spot where White Antelope
was left tied, when the fight was over.
And they feared pursuit and a worse thrashing than they had already
endured. They clamored to be led away from the place, and Boyd
Bennett, gnashing his teeth in impotent rage, was forced to agree.
Every man of them had a fear of Buffalo Bill, the Border King. How he
could have gotten ahead of them, and been in the teamsters’ encampment
when they made their attack, added to the superstitious veneration in
which the outlaws had begun to hold the great scout. Heretofore they
had held Boyd Bennett as a better man than Cody; but now they began to
doubt.
Besides, several of them did not approve of his bearing away the Indian
girl from her village. While Bennett had posed as the medicine chief
of the Sioux, they were all sure of being treated well by the savages.
Some of them had taken Indian wives and were living in ease and
plenty--the lazy, irresponsible existence of the “squaw-man.”
Boyd Bennett’s unhappy attachment for the chief’s daughter had brought
the gang together again, and old-time loyalty had caused them to answer
his command. But they now believed that they had lost more than they
should gain. All the Sioux would be down upon them, and so they would
be at enmity with every man they met in the forest and on the plain,
both red and white!
White Antelope showed plainly that she would never yield to Boyd
Bennett’s demand and espouse him. While he was with the Indians and
wielding so much influence as Death Killer, the medicine-man, she had
spurned his advances. Much more did she hold him in contempt now.
And Boyd Bennett, too, was acting very strangely. Evil ways and evil
desires were turning the man’s brain. He acted without judgment. Now
he unloosed White Antelope, caught her up to his saddle, and rode away
with his men without as much as looking for traces of Buffalo Bill in
the vicinity, or learning if in reality the freighters were inclined to
follow up their advantage and push the attack.
They swam the river and made for another exit from the valley. But
their horses were pretty well done up, and they could get only a spurt
of speed out of them now and then. Besides, Boyd Bennett’s own mount
refused after a time to carry double. This necessitated one of the
other ruffians carrying White Antelope before him on his saddle.
The chance afforded the chief villain an escape from certain death. The
party were aiming to leave the valley by the way the broadening river
flowed; but they were some distance from the river’s side. Through the
uncertain light of early morning they did not see a tireless white
horse carrying its rider down the opposite bank until they reached a
ford, through which the stallion splashed to the side of the stream on
which the bandits rode.
It was the avenger on the villain’s trail; but they did not suspect
that again Buffalo Bill had ridden ahead of them. Chief was tireless.
The scout ensconced the horse behind a thicket, and wormed his way out
into the open where he could draw bead on anybody passing along the
river trail. It was a long shot, but the scout had succeeded in making
more ticklish ones in times past.
By and by the band of tired horsemen loped along the trail. The light
was too uncertain for Cody to distinguish one man from the other; but
he saw one riding ahead and carrying the girl before him, and he
believed it must be Bennett. He did not think the fellow would let the
White Antelope out of his own bloody hands.
Therefore he took sight--deadly sight--at this man, and shot him
through the head!
A yell rose from the bandits as the rifle exploded and the man pitched
off his mount. It was answered by Buffalo Bill’s eery war-whoop. The
seven remaining bandits knew who had fired the fatal shot.
But, although the immediate captor of the girl had fallen, she had no
time to urge the pony to one side and thus escape. Buffalo Bill saw
his mistake in a moment. With a wild yell Boyd Bennett spurred to the
side of the horse which White Antelope sat, and threatened her with
drawn bowie as the whole cavalcade shot down the river trail and put
a brush-clump between them and the scout’s rifle. When they appeared
again they were out of rifle-shot.
“Seven of them left,” muttered Buffalo Bill. “I thought I had that
devil that time. But let him wait--let him wait!”
He mounted Chief once more and rode for a time in the wake of the
bandits. But, fearing that some of them might slip off their horses and
lay in wait for him, he turned aside into the hilly country and so saw
the refugees only occasionally from the summits of certain hills which
he climbed. He kept them from resting, however, during the forenoon. By
midday the desperadoes’ ponies were completely worn out.
Had they not been so fearful of the scout the seven men might have
shown fight. They were equally well armed with Buffalo Bill, and some
of them were good shots. But Boyd Bennett thought only of escape with
the girl, and his mates were in a blue funk, anyway.
They came at noon to a deserted Indian encampment. It was a
hunting-camp, the braves evidently being out in the hills after game
and having left nobody but the squaws on guard. The squaws had gone
into the bush after late berries. Therefore, there was none to balk the
bandits.
There were no ponies, or the men would have left their fagged mounts
and stolen those of the red men. But in the river lay two good-sized
canoes. Abandoning their ponies the outlaws seized these boats, forced
White Antelope into the leading one with Boyd Bennett and two others,
and the four remaining men entering the other boat, both were pushed
off and paddled down the stream.
Cody beheld this move from a hilltop, and immediately rode down to
the river. Had he crossed the paths of any of the Indians--they were
not Sioux, but he knew the tribe--he might have obtained their help.
Alone, however, he came to the river-bank. The canoes were far out in
the stream and going down rapidly with the current and the force of the
paddles. The scout saw the White Antelope on her knees in the forward
boat, her arms stretched out to him. Her mute gesture for help spurred
him on to a desperate attempt!
Chief had come far now without much rest, but he was able to make one
more spurt. Down the river path the scout thundered, racing to catch
up with the canoes. There was a high bluff across the river, offering
no landing-place. On this side the bank was low. Even if the canoes
were paddled near the opposite shore, the scout’s rifle would carry a
deadly ball that distance. In coming near, and into sight, however, he
gave the bandits a chance to try their marksmanship upon him.
But this risk the brave scout took. For the White Antelope’s sake he
was venturing his life.
He forced Chief to top speed until the brave old horse came out upon a
cleared space just ahead of the two canoes. The bandits began to pop
at him with their rifles; but shooting from a sitting position in a
trumpery little canoe was no easy job.
Both craft were overloaded, anyway. Two men were supposed to be the
full complement of the cargo of each. So the craft rode low, and the
least movement might tip them over. One man in the forward boat, and
two in the latter, turned their attention to the scout and his white
horse; but their bullets flew wide of the mark.
The scout, however, paid no more attention to the whistling lead than
he would have to so many buzzing flies. He dismounted from Chief, and,
standing out deliberately on the river-bank, raised his rifle and took
aim at the leading paddler in the rear boat. He did not shoot at those
with White Antelope in the other canoe. First he would reduce the
numbers of the gang.
Crack!
The heavy rifle spoke no louder than a pistol across the flat surface
of the water. With a yell the man dropped his paddle, turned a face all
gory upon the scout, and then pitched out of the canoe!
Strangely enough he did not tip over the vessel. Another caught up his
paddle. They tried to urge the craft to the foot of the steep bluff.
But now the current had caught the light canoe in a fierce grip, and to
swerve it was not easy.
Crack!
Just as a second man was drawing bead as well as he could upon the
undaunted scout, the rifle dropped from his hands, and he fell backward
into the bottom of the canoe. The craft dipped dangerously and all but
went over. As it righted the scout fired a third time. Plunk the ball
went through and through the body of the canoe!
The water began to run in at both holes, and the canoe sank. One of the
remaining men, in complete panic, threw himself overboard and swam for
the shore. The other continued to paddle desperately.
A double report sounded. The rifleman in the forward boat had stood up
and taken a better aim at the scout. The latter’s shoulder was plowed
just under the skin by the ball. But Cody’s own bullet sped straight to
the desperate paddler in the second canoe, and the man fell sideways,
shot through the lungs; the canoe tipped completely, and man and canoe
went to the bottom together.
Meanwhile, the fourth man in that boat had reached the strand. It was a
narrow beach and offered no shelter for him. He scrambled up the steep
bluff like a crab making for its hole. But when he was half-way up, and
his body against the yellow sand made an excellent target, the scout’s
gun spoke again.
Sprawled out, and screaming, the fellow fell all the way back to the
shore, and there, squirming with the agony of the wound which was in a
vital part, he rolled into the river, and the black current swept him
swiftly down-stream.
He passed the first canoe that had been retarding, while the rifleman
tried a second particular shot at the scout. The drowning man yelled
for help. He even snatched at the gunwale of the canoe as he was swept
by.
Instantly Boyd Bennett seized a pistol from his belt and deliberately
shot the drowning man through the head. Perhaps, if the latter had
seized the canoe, he would have overturned it and sacrificed the four
other lives; yet it was a desperately cruel act!
Meanwhile Cody had leaped aside, escaping the second shot of the
rifleman in the remaining canoe; and then, before the man could sit
down and the canoe could shoot ahead, he dropped him cleanly with a
ball through the heart!
In five minutes the bloody battle was over. But two of the bandits were
left alive. The other five had sunk to the bottom of the river, while
the remaining two, and the White Antelope, were being carried swiftly
down the stream, and by a current now so powerful that they could not
steer to the bank on either side. Just below were the worst series of
rapids on the entire river!