The conduct of the border king was fully justified toward the evening of that same day.
As they were cresting a rise in the prairie the scouts saw the wagons of Mr. Doyle’s train about two miles away.
Buffalo Bill’s keen eye at once perceived that something was wrong. The covers of the wagons were torn, the horses and mules were on the ground, prostrate, and one of the wagons itself was overturned.
The cheeks of the king of the scouts blanched almost as soon as he topped the rise and got his first glimpse of the wagon train.
“They have been attacked!” he gasped, between clenched teeth. “Heaven alone knows what has happened to them! Forward, boys, at the gallop!”
Setting the example, he dug his spurs into the horse—a thing which he did only under stress of the direst necessity—and shot forward from his party like an arrow from the bow.
They were a hard-riding set—those scouts and Pawnees—but the Texan beat them all. Jack Mainwaring alone kept up with Buffalo Bill in that wild ride across the prairie toward the wagons.
Even Wild Bill, one of the hardest riders ever known on the great plains, was left well behind.
But Jack Mainwaring had the spur of love to urge him on, and to make him take out of his horse all the speed it had—even at the risk of killing the animal.