Even then he would not yield—but with an amazing power of will, rolled over on his face, and rose on his uninjured knee. In this position he raised his rifle again; but the malignant Comanche had his eye upon him, and the same instant the fainting form of the girl was whirled around in his front, and the infuriated scout, who, for an instant, had meditated shooting both, finding himself baffled at every point, dropped back again in despair.
“No use; I may as well go under,” he muttered, giving up entirely.
The exulting Comanche, still fearful of the wounded man’s rifle, rode on, intending to return at his leisure and scalp the man who had been so long such an effective foe.
But his career was at an end. He was still looking at the prostrate form of the scout, when the near crack of a rifle broke the stillness, and the great Comanche chieftain, Swico-Cheque, rolled from his mustang, shot through the heart!
In his fall he dragged Lizzie Manning with him, and he would have slain her in his dying moments, had he not been killed as instantly as if stricken by a bolt from heaven.
The maiden, rallying to a sense of her terrible position, tore herself loose, and the next moment was caught in the arms of Egbert Rodman.
“Thank God! thank God!” he exclaimed, as he pressed her to his heart; “saved at last!”
She joined her murmurs of thanksgiving with his, and then with a noble sympathy characteristic of her, she raised her head, and said:
“Poor Jo is hurt; and I’m afraid he is killed! Let us go to him.”
The two hurried down the hollow where the scout lay as motionless as if dead; but he roused up when he saw them.