The king of scouts looked coldly on for a moment, and then his humanity getting the better of his aversion, he stepped forward, removed without resistance the weapons of the sufferer, and then said sternly: “Flatten out on the ground, and I’ll try to save you.”
Thunder Cloud waved the scout off. “No, the hour has come. Thunder Cloud must go to join his fathers in the land of the Great Spirit.”
“Perhaps, but I’ll see about that.”
With these words he tripped the chief, and then sat upon him. With a knife he cut a slit in the cheek where the snake had operated, and, applying his mouth to the wound, sucked out the greater part of the poison.
Then from his pocket he produced a small oilskin package, which, on being opened, disclosed a wad of dried leaves having an aromatic flavor. The leaves were moistened with whisky and then applied to the poisoned cheek.
Thunder Cloud, now passive, followed the operation with staring eyes. After the leaves had been bound in place, Buffalo Bill offered his whisky flask to the Indian. “Drink,” he commanded; “drink the whole of it. The combined treatment I have been giving you will bring you out all right. I know what I am talking about, for I have cured myself more than once. In these snake-infested hills I always carry with me the antidote for the poison.”
Thunder Cloud, in faith and gratitude, drank until not a drop of the liquor was left in the flask.
As he lay on the ground in a half-unconscious condition, the king of scouts stole away to find Black-face Ned and the white prisoners.
He moved with caution, for, though he knew that the leader of the outlaws was not in a condition to oppose physical force against his enemy, yet the villain could use a pistol, and a shot could be made effective from ambush.
But the line of brush was without an enemy or a friend. Black-face Ned, wounded and weak as he was, had disappeared, and with him had gone Colonel Hayden, Sybil, and probably Alkali Pete.