Then Delaware Tom abruptly jerked his horse up, casting him upon his haunches. A motion of his hand checked the others.
Soaring to their ears, borne upon the light air, came the confusedly-mingled sounds of rifle-shots, shrill yells and hoarse shouts, from beyond the swell of the prairie. The cause was but too evident.
The savages were desperately attacking the emigrant train. Then all was not yet over—they might still be in time!
“Wait until all come up—then one steady charge, and they’re ours!” whispered Travers to the impetuous Ayres.
CHAPTER XII.
DOG EAT DOG.
The old guide, Tom Maxwell, gave himself up for lost. The fire blazed up brightly—the smoke blinded his eyes—the heat began to scorch his garments. His fate seemed indubitably sealed.
But such was not to be, just then. A sudden interruption came, from an utterly unlooked-for source.
The quick clatter of a horse’s hoofs was heard upon the shingle that covered the base of the hill, and then a foam-flecked steed dashed up beside the blazing fire. With a hoarse cry, its rider sprung to the ground, and dashed through the group of startled savages, hurling them rudely aside to clear a passage.
Ere a hand could be raised to check him, the blazing fagots were kicked aside and the daring man stood close to Maxwell. One cut of the gleaming knife severed the rope that bound him to the stake.
But then, with a howl, the Arapahoe chief, Wapashaw, sprung forward, and hurled the man to the ground, ten feet away.