CONCLUSION.
When Adam Brent saw the outlaw preparing to jump down upon him, he gave himself up for lost. He was not able to defend himself from the assault of that strong man, and neither did he expect assistance from any source; and when he saw the panther spring from his hiding-place among the rocks, and fall with Black Bill to the bottom of the cave, he was so amazed and bewildered, that, for a moment, he could scarcely believe the evidence of his eyes. He forgot Black Bill, and every thing else, in the reflection that he had passed a portion of the night in the cavern with that savage animal, and that he had slept while his glaring eyes were fastened upon him. Regardless of being seen by the outlaws, he looked over the bowlder, and watched the struggle that was going on below. He had never witnessed so desperate a fight before, and, although he was intensely alarmed, he retained his wits sufficiently to notice that the panther was getting the best of it, and that he was in a fair way to clear the cave of his enemies. The bullets which Black Bill's friends had fired at him, if they had hit him at all, had only served to render him more furious.
When Adam first looked over the bowlder, the combatants were tumbling about on the ground, the men using their knives, and the panther striking right and left with his claws, and growling fiercely. In a moment the scene changed. Black Bill was lying motionless where he had fallen; one of the outlaws, with his face terribly lacerated, was rolling about, uttering piercing cries of pain and terror; the other, who was the only one uninjured, was trying to climb up the sides of the cave out of reach of his dangerous antagonist; and the panther was crouching low on the ground, looking toward the passage-way, where stood a couple of trappers who had entered unobserved.
"Send a chunk of lead into the critter, Dick; thar's my game," said Bob Kelly, pointing toward the prostrate form of his old enemy.
The panther, lashing his sides with his tail, sprang into the air, but was met half way by a bullet sent by an unerring hand, and fell dead almost at the feet of the old trapper, who ran into the cave, and bent over Black Bill's motionless figure; while Dick collared the uninjured outlaw, and held him fast.
"We're too late, Dick," exclaimed Bob, after he had taken one glance at his insensible foe. "I've waited an' watched fur him all these years to be cheated at last by a painter. The critter's done the work fur him."
Dick's prisoner seemed astonished beyond measure at the sudden appearance of the trappers. He never thought of resistance, but readily surrendered his knife, and begged lustily for quarter. His captor looked at him with an expression of great contempt on his honest countenance.
"You're a purty feller, to lead wild Injuns agin peaceable tradin'-posts, an' then when you're ketched ask fur quarter, aint you?" he exclaimed. "If me an' Bob were like we used to be, all your hollerin' an' beggin' wouldn't do you no 'arthly good whatsomever; but we lived among white folks a good while, an' we've larnt that thar is law, even on the prairy, fur jest sich fellers as you. We'll take you to Fort Benton, that's what we'll do with you, an' if you aint hung fur your meanness, I shall allers think you'd oughter be. Hallo! Come down from thar, you keerless feller!"
The trapper had discovered Adam looking at him over the top of the bowlder. He thought it was Archie, and he was a good deal disappointed when he found that it was not. He asked a good many questions concerning the missing boy, but Adam knew nothing about him. Archie had left him while he was sitting by the fire in the soldiers' quarters, running bullets, and he had not seen him since.
"Never mind," said Dick; "he'll turn up all right yet. He's got a heap of sense, that little feller has, an' grit, too; an' they'll bring him safe out of any scrape he can get into. Now, where's Frank, I wonder? The last time I seed him that hoss of his'n was carryin' him through the ravine like a streak of lightnin'. It would take two or three sich men as I be to watch that oneasy feller."