“By thunder! a hold-up!” he gasped. “And those weren’t Indian yells. The stage-coach, I’ll bet! Yet the coach wouldn’t take the old road yonder. Why! It couldn’t come that way! It would be surely wrecked.”
Yet, although the shouts and rifle-shots died away, the sound of the wheels and the hammering of the horses’ hoofs increased. Some heavy vehicle, drawn by several horses, was coming down the Breakneck Hill road!
The lone horseman, who had halted at the first sound, now set spurs to his mount again. He headed directly across the plateau. The stage-road was just below the brink of the precipitous slant not many rods away, and toward this place the lieutenant hurried.
“It is the stage!” he cried. “The miscreants have turned it down the old road. There’s a level bit below here for some rods; but if it crosses that and goes down the other descent—well! God help them if there is man, woman, or child aboard!”
He reached the brink of the steep descent to the level stretch of the old road. Down the first dip was tearing six frightened steeds with the old stage-coach swaying and bounding behind them. And in the rear a riderless white horse was racing after the coach!
That horse the lieutenant recognized.
“That’s Cody’s mount—it is, by thunder! What’s it doing here? And where’s Bill?”
There was not another horse like Chief on the frontier; but the stage was too far away for the young man to recognize the figure swaying on the coach seat.
“They’re running away, and the driver’s lost his nerve!” exclaimed the cavalryman.
Then he raised his voice, shouting in trumpet tones: