The rangers ahead yelled triumphantly as one by one they gained the open and swerved in safety around to the east. Their shouts were drowned in a vast bellowing that grew so near it roared in their ears like heavy surf.
Kenton and Doby were bringing up the rear. Kenton's horse stepped into a hole and went down heavily. Doby's leaped ahead. After a few jumps he was able to check it. He wheeled and came back. Kenton had gained his feet, but his mount was doomed—a broken leg. There was no help for the poor brute but a merciful bullet. To this sad use unhappy Doby put his proud flintlock. To Kenton, who was badly jarred, he reached a firm hand and took him up behind.
Too late now to gain the plain, impossible to face the flying, panic-stricken hordes, there was nothing for it but to flee straight back over the course they had come.
To be overtaken was to be trampled down to earth, ground into fragments and totally destroyed. Oh, the irony of traveling for days and days through a country where the buffalo would have been harmless and then to meet them in the one hour and the one place where they meant death to man!
Kenton, recovering himself under the prick of their danger, watched by the lightning flashes for an opening in the sides of the ravine. He soon saw a tiny brook trickling from a cleft. They bolted from the trace and stopped in it. Although it was only a tiny pocket set back and up from the sides of the bluff, it was enough to shelter them and their horse. In less than two minutes the herd came sweeping past below them.
All night long, under a stormy sky, they huddled in their covert and saw and heard and smelled the buffalo as they galloped past. All day long, through the clearing weather, they watched more buffalo and more buffalo—walking now. All night long again, under clear skies and brilliant stars, they listened to the stragglers sedately following behind.
The man and boy had food in their saddle-bags and water at their feet. The horse drank and helped himself to green stuff.
Kenton said: "Give the Injuns followin' the herds time to vamoose. Then we go on. Our folks won't hunt for us, 'cause they think we're wiped out."
"If we trail alone, do you suppose the Indians will scalp us—you and me?" quavered Doby. His bright dreams had been to win glory by defeating Indians in open battle. Never at any time had he planned to have them destroy him on the sly.
"Think likely—yes," drawled Kenton. "Ye must git used to close calls. I've had 'em many and many a time. Don't wash yer face. That's yer big chance."