The redskin's audacity, nimbleness and self-possession excited the admiration of Grizzly Weber, angered though he was at the trick played on him. The rider knew the risk of keeping up the fight with the obdurate beast, for the master was sure to arrive on the spot within a few seconds. Before the rancher could reach him he went from the saddle as if shot out of a gun.
Freed from his incubus, Cap emitted a joyful whinny and trotted toward his master.
"You rascal!" exclaimed the delighted rancher, vaulting upon his back in a twinkling. "Now we'll settle with the chap that tried to part you and me."
All this consumed but a few moments. The Indian could not have gone far. He would not dash among the cattle, who, now that they were stampeded, were as dangerous as so many wild beasts. He had hardly time to conceal himself, and Grizzly was certain that he had him.
All the same, however, the cowman made a miscalculation. When he wheeled Cap about to run down the daring redskin he was nowhere to be seen. There were no trees near, but there were boulders, rocks and depressions, with the rich grass everywhere, and the dusky thief was as safe as if beyond the Assinaboine, in British territory.
"I'm glad of it," thought Weber, a moment later; "a redskin that can show such a performance as that desarves to save his scalp."
In the dizzying flurry Grizzly had no time to think of his companion, who had enough to attend to his own matters. He now looked around for him, but he, too, was invisible.
"I wonder whether he got his horse back, for Dick must have been stole, the same as was Cap."
And, grateful for having regained possession of his horse, he patted the silken neck of the noble animal.
Grizzly's years of experience with cattle apprised him of a gratifying truth. The course of the stampeded herd was changing. Instead of fleeing away from the main body they were veering around, so that, if the change of course continued, they would return to the neighbourhood from which they started.