“Missed him!” cried the trapper. “Away wi’ yur sodger gun!” he added, flinging down the musket, and rushing after the savage with his drawn knife.
I followed among the rest. I heard several shots as we scrambled through the brushwood.
When I had got to the outer edge I could see the Indian still on his feet, and running with the speed of an antelope. He did not keep in a direct line, but zigzag, leaping from side to side, in order to baffle the aim of his pursuers, whose rifles were all the time ringing behind him. As yet none of their bullets had taken effect, at least so as to cripple him. There was a streak of blood visible on his brown body, but the wound, wherever it was did not seem to hinder him in his flight.
I thought there could be no chance of his escape, and I had no intention of emptying my gun at such a mark. I remained, therefore, among the bushes, screening myself behind the leaves and watching the chase.
Some of the hunters continued to follow him on foot, while the more cunning ones rushed back for their horses. These happened to be all on the opposite side of the thicket, with one exception, and that was the mare of the trapper Rube. She was browsing where Rube had dismounted, out among the slaughtered buffaloes, and directly in the line of the chase.
As the savage approached her, a sudden thought seemed to strike him, and diverging slightly from his course, he plucked up the picket-pin, coiled the lasso with the dexterity of a gaucho, and sprang upon the animal’s back.
It was a well-conceived idea, but unfortunate for the Indian. He had scarcely touched the saddle when a peculiar shout was heard above all other sounds. It was a call uttered in the voice of the earless trapper. The mustang recognised it; and instead of running forward, obedient to the guidance of her rider, she wheeled suddenly and came galloping back. At this moment a shot fired at the savage scorched her hip, and, setting back her ears, she commenced squealing and kicking so violently that all her feet seemed to be in the air at the same time.
The Indian now endeavoured to fling himself from the saddle; but the alternate plunging of the fore and hind quarters kept him for some moments tossing in a sort of balance. He was at length pitched outward, and fell to the ground upon his back. Before he could recover himself a Mexican had ridden up, and with his long lance pinned him to the earth.
A scene followed in which Rube played the principal character; in fact, had “the stage to himself.”
“Sodger guns” were sent to perdition; and as the old trapper was angry about the wound which his mare had received, “crook-eyed greenhorns” came in for a share of his anathemas. The mustang, however, had sustained no serious damage; and after this was ascertained, the emphatic ebullitions of her master’s anger subsided into a low growling, and then ceased altogether.