With the crack of the first shot the off-wheeler dropped, the stage swayed forward sideways, and then was dragged on, with the dead horse, yet at a slackened pace.
With the second shot the other wheel-horse stumbled, staggered, half-fell, regained its feet again, and finally went down heavily. Again the coach swayed badly; but the stout pole was kept up by the pressure of the draft of four horses upon it, and the heavy breast chains and traces held the two dead animals firmly attached to it, both acting as a powerful drag upon the others, and retarding their speed to a slow gallop.
Dick Danforth let his mount out, came down the remainder of the run with a rush, and on the level reached the leader’s heads. He seized the bridle of the nearest horse and dragged him to one side, almost throwing him. The horse broke step and pulled its mate down. In a minute all four were brought up standing—and not an instant too soon, for the brink of the second and more perilous part of the hill was right before them!
The horses were still in a nervous state; but Dick Danforth could trust his own mount. He placed the horse he rode in front of the leaders, leaped from the saddle, and left the bridle-reins hanging over his horse’s head. While they remained thus nothing less than an earthquake, or a volcanic eruption, would make the horse move out of his tracks—and the coach-animals could not pass him.
“Quick, Danforth! As you are alone you’d best get out of here quick. Here come my foes!” cried Buffalo Bill, glancing back.
Boyd Bennett and his men, all mounted now, were picking their way down the hill, intent upon overtaking Buffalo Bill again and his lone rescuer. But Dick Danforth was not the man to fly and leave a comrade in peril. His escort was as yet a long way off, he knew; Buffalo Bill was bound too tightly for quick release, and could not aid in beating back the bandits.
Danforth ran directly toward the coach, nevertheless. Along came Chief at an easy lope, and he caught the horse. He saw that Cody’s loaded pistols were in the holsters. He snatched them out, and climbed quickly up to the box seat.
By then the bandits had begun to fire. But, without replying, and while the lead whistled about their heads like hail, the lieutenant slashed the cords which held Buffalo Bill’s hands in limbo.
“Grab these and let the sons-of-guns have ’em, Cody!” yelled the excited officer, thrusting his own pistols into the scout’s hands.
Then he flung himself forward upon his face along the coach top, and, dragging his own guns from his boots, into the tops of which he had dropped them, he began to blaze away at Boyd Bennett and his gang with such good success that almost instantly the leader was wounded and another man was dropped out of his saddle. Buffalo Bill began to fire rapidly, too, being able to twist the upper part of his body about and take aim.