There was an abundance of water-fowl in the sloughs and ponds up and down the river, and Bucks, the morning after Stanley’s departure, leaving the troopers lounging in camp, started out 111 with a shot-gun to look for ducks. He passed the first bend up-stream, and working his way toward a small pond thickly fringed with alders, where he had often seen teal and mallards, attempted to crawl within gunshot of it.
He was working his way in this fashion toward the edge of the water when he heard a clatter of wings and the next moment a flock of mallards rushed in swift flight over his head. He impulsively threw up his gun to fire but some instinct checked him. He was in a country of dangerous enemies and the thought of bears still loomed large in his mind. An instant’s reflection convinced him that it was not his movement that had frightened the ducks, and he was enough of a hunter to look further than that for the cause. As caution seemed, from the soreness of his legs and arms, plainly indicated, he lay still to await developments.
Soon he heard a movement of trampling feet, and, seemingly, across the pond from him. Bucks thought of buffaloes. His heart beat fast at the thought of getting a shot at one until he reflected 112 that he had no rifle. The next instant his heart stopped beating. Not ten feet from where he lay in the thick willows, an Indian carrying a rifle, and in war-paint, stole noiselessly along toward the camp. No sooner had he disappeared than a second brave followed, and while Bucks was digesting this fright a third warrior, creeping in the same stealthy manner and almost without a sound, passed the staring boy; the appearance of a fourth and a fifth raised the hair on Bucks’s head till he was almost stunned with fright, but he had still to count three more in the party, one more ferocious-looking than another, before all had passed.
What to do was the question that forced itself on him. He feared the Indians would attack the troopers in camp, and this he felt would be a massacre, since the men, not suspecting danger, would be taken wholly unawares. Should he fire his gun as a signal? It would probably bring the Indians back upon him, but the thought of allowing the troopers to be butchered was insupportable. His hammers were cocked and his finger 113 was on one trigger when he considered how useless the alarm would be. The troopers knew that he had gone duck hunting. They would expect to hear him shoot and would pay no attention to it. To rush out after the Indians would only invite his instant death.
There seemed nothing he could do and a cold sweat of apprehension broke over him. But if he fired his gun he might, at least, surprise the Indians. The report of a gun in their rear would alarm them––since they knew nothing of his presence or his duck hunting and might take fright. Without more ado he fired both barrels one after the other, careful only to shoot low into the willows, hoping the smoke would not rise so quickly as to betray him before he could make a dash for a new hiding-place.
His ruse worked and he ran at top speed for twenty yards before he threw himself into a clump of cotton-woods close to the camp trail and began to reload. While he was doing so a shout came from the direction of the railroad bridge. Not until then did Bucks understand what the Indians 114 were after. But had he not understood, he would have known a moment later when he heard a sharp exchange of shots toward the camp, heard the dogs barking furiously, and saw the Indians, now on their ponies, running the troopers’ horses past him at a breakneck gallop. The Indians yelled lustily at the success of their raid, the stampeded horses dashed panic-stricken before them, and the braves shouted back in derision at the vain efforts of the troopers to stop them with useless bullets. Bucks’s own impulse was to empty a charge of birdshot into the last of the fleeing warriors, but this he knew might cost him his life, and he resisted the temptation. When he was sure all were past he ran toward the bluffs, and gaining a little eminence saw the fleeing Indians, a dozen in all, making their way jubilantly up the river. At the camp the discomfited cavalrymen were preparing for a siege, and in their excitement almost shot Bucks as he hove in sight.
Bucks gave a good description of the marauders, and, following him up to the pond, six of the troopers attempted some pursuit. This, to unmounted 115 men, was useless, as they well knew. Indeed, they used caution not to come unawares on any friends of the escaping braves that might have lingered behind.
Colonel Stanley returned in the morning to hear that his escort had been unhorsed. Bob Scott grinned at the cavalrymen as they told the story. He assured them that they had got off lightly, and that if Bucks’s signals had not alarmed the little war-party they might have carried away scalps as well as horses.
“We shall be in luck if we don’t hear more of those fellows,” said he to Bucks afterward. There was now manifestly nothing to do but to go in, and later in the day a freight train was flagged and the whole party, with Scuffy and the hounds, returned to Casement’s camp. Scott sent his dogs thence to the ranch in Medicine Bend, and at Bucks’s urgent request Scuffy was sent with them to await his own return to head-quarters.