The young Indian heard the order, but paid no attention to it. He ran directly to the horses, and, springing upon King James's back, cut the lasso, with which he was tied, with his knife, and went tearing down the ravine, with Frank in hot pursuit. The time had come now to decide the question which had been so long in dispute. This was to be a fair race, and Frank wished his cousin had been there to witness it, for he was sure of a victory.
A few of Roderick's long bounds carried him through the willows and out on the prairie, where Frank discovered the Indian, almost a hundred yards distant, lying flat along his horse's neck, one hand twisted in his mane, and the other swinging the lasso, which he now and then brought down on the black's side with a sounding whack. Roderick seemed to know what was expected of him, for he increased his speed the moment he emerged from the willows, and then the race began in earnest. The gray gained from the start, and rapidly, too; and, before half a mile had been accomplished, Frank was so close to the object of his pursuit that he leaned forward to catch him by the scalp-lock.
"I guess you'll stop now, Indian!" he exclaimed. "Well, it makes no difference to me which way you take it, on foot or on horseback, for I can beat you."
The Indian, for once, was a little too quick for Frank. Slipping like an eel out of his grasp, he threw himself from his horse without attempting to check his headlong speed, and, landing safely on his feet, started back toward the willows. Frank was on the ground almost at the same instant; and then began another race, which, like the one that had come off the day before at the Indian camp, was decided in favor of the fleet-footed young hunter. The Black Fox, however, was desperate to the last; and, after the race, a fight ensued. One quick, determined blow with the rifle knocked the knife from the savage's hand; but that was not the end of the matter—it was only the beginning of it. The young warrior's strength and agility seemed to have increased wonderfully since their last meeting, and the struggle, which continued at least ten minutes, was decided only by Frank's superior powers of endurance. He came off with flying colors; and when he helped his prisoner to his feet, his arms were fastened behind his back with his own belt.
CHAPTER XII.
ADAM BESIEGED.
For a quarter of an hour after Frank left him, Adam worked industriously, collecting a supply of wood for the fire, which he piled at the entrance to the passage-way. The next thing to be done was to ascertain whether or not the cave was a safe place for them to camp during the night. One enemy had been dislodged by the smoke, but there might be others in there for all he knew. The only way to find out was to go in and see; and this Adam prepared to do.
Having satisfied himself that his knife and hatchet were safe in his belt, he grasped a lighted pine-knot in one hand to serve as a torch, and holding in the other the bow, and half a dozen arrows which he had selected from the quiver, he crawled down into the passage-way. The thought that he was about to enter the cave which, but a few minutes before, had been the home of a panther, made him tremble so violently that the torch shook in his hand. He worked his way along very slowly and cautiously, stopping every few feet to examine the ground before him, and finally reached the foot of the passage-way without having discovered any thing at which to be alarmed. There was the panther's bed on the withered hemlock boughs which, in days gone by, had served Dick and Bill Lawson for a couch; but the panther himself was gone. The cave appeared to be empty, but it was not so in reality. Had Adam raised his torch above his head and examined the sides of the cavern closely, he would have discovered something crouching behind a projecting rock, about ten feet above the floor of the cave, and might have seen the eyes which glared down at him through the darkness.
"This will do nicely," said Adam to himself. "There is a little too much smoke in here just now for comfort, but that will soon pass out. If the outlaws track us here, and come in at one of the passage-ways, we can go out at the other; and if they surround us, so that we can't get out at all, we can climb up the sides of the cave and hide among those rocks."