But Red Hatchet was as cunning as he was brave, and he would not force his ponies to full speed, knowing they could not last long at that pace.
He took in, too, that they could not be readily flanked from the nature of the ground, and counting the men on his track he saw that where he had thirty braves Kit Carey had fourteen.
Under ordinary circumstances he would have halted and taken some Cheyenne scalps, confident of his ability to do so, for he hated these Indian allies of the whites most bitterly.
But with that tall form in the lead, with his darkly-bronzed, fearless, handsome face, his deadly aim and desperate courage even Red Hatchet dared not halt to fight back a force only half his own in strength.
He knew those men as the captors and slayers of Sitting Bull, the mighty chief, and he was well aware that the White War Eagle did not count numbers when there was work to be done.
So he would hold on in his flight until a chance came to ambush his pursuers, and while his captive was sent on under two trusted warriors, he would remain to fight the White War Eagle with the advantage of position added to numbers.
"Let the White War Eagle follow, and he will run into an ambush, and his scalp hang at the belt of the Red Hatchet," said the chief to Jennie, whose heart sank within her at the danger that the daring officer must encounter in his effort to rescue her.