With vindictive growls they battled with them, but the well-trained and naturally smart prairie horses were much too quick and wide awake to be caught on their cruel horns.
As soon as the ring was broken up, the man in the middle drove his spurs deep into the sides of his horse, and tried his best to escape.
The maddened animal made a swift bound, and tried to reach the stream in a succession of magnificent leaps, but the band had no intention of allowing Mr. Van Dorn to escape.
A long lasso came whistling through the air, and settled around the neck of the horse; the strands became taut, and, with a scream of pain, horse and man rolled to the ground.
In a moment several men, red ones and white ones, too, were standing over him, and Van Dorn was lifted from the ground, much bruised and covered with dust, and very thoroughly shaken up.
The buffaloes—those left alive—had made up their minds to migrate, and they were now plashing through the waters, making excellent time for the opposite shore.
Many of them lay upon the blood-stained plain by the water’s edge, either dead or dying.
Black Arrow, a tall, powerfully-built Indian, and a white man called Billy Blossom, a low-browed, swarthy villain of middle age, were looked up to as the leaders of the party, and they now came forward and took a look at the sullen prisoner.
“Well, you’ve got me,” said Van Dorn, as he looked up into the face of the white leader.
“Rayther guess you’re right, old hoss,” said Billy Blossom.