Lightning Jo, the Terror of the Santa Fe Trail: A Tale of the Present Day

by Edward Sylvester Ellis

And with this parting salutation, or rather warning, the scout started his horse on a gallop, straight toward the rise, as though he purposed to ride directly between the hills already mentioned. But seemingly on the very point of entering, he turned his mustang sharply to one side, and instead of passing between, circled around the hill upon his right.

All this time he sat as erect and proud in his saddle as though he were approaching the stockade of the fort, which he had made his head-quarters for so many years.

The cavalrymen, as a matter of course, scrutinized his movements with the intensest interest.

“How easy for a stray shot to tumble him out of his saddle!” was the reflection of nearly every one watching the daring soldier.

This action of Lightning Jo speedily carried him over a portion of the ridge, and out of sight of the horsemen, who could only surmise what was going on beyond.

But the sharp, pistol-like crack of a rifle, within five minutes of the time he had vanished from view, proved that the fears of Lightning Joe were well founded, and that the drama had already opened in dead earnest.

Indeed it had. The scout had detected all-convincing signs of the presence of his old enemies upon the hill, and the simple artifice of turning aside, at the last moment, had given him the advantage of flanking his foes, and coming upon them from altogether an unexpected quarter.

As he passed over the ridge, Jo saw about twenty Comanche Indians sitting quietly upon their horses, and in a position that indicated that they were composedly expecting the appearance of their prey from another quarter. Instead of turning to flee, the scout saluted them in his customary manner by bringing up his rifle, and boring a hole through the skull of one of the astonished red-skins, before the rest really suspected what was going on.

“Tahoo—oo!” called out Jo, as he witnessed the success of his shot, and he followed it up with another yell that was peculiarly his own, and which was so impossible of imitation that he was known by it from Arizona to Mexico.