“Escape, men! We are undone!” shrieked Boyd Bennett, at last.
He had seen four of his men fall never to rise again, and two others had lost their mounts and had to spend precious moments in catching two of their dead comrades’ horses. Back the decimated party fled over the ridge.
The freighters poured in volley after volley upon the retreating outlaws. But the captain would not let them mount such horses and mules as they could catch and follow the crew. In this he got square with Buffalo Bill for the scout’s sharp words.
In the height of the fight, after seeing that the freight crew were more than a match for the outlaws, Buffalo Bill had slipped down under the river-bank and had run at his best pace toward the spot where the outlaws had been encamped earlier in the evening. There he had seen White Antelope tied to a sapling so that she could not escape while her captors tried their nefarious scheme of robbing and murdering the freight-train crew.
Believing that Bennett would leave nobody to guard the girl, the scout was bent upon reaching the place first and releasing her.
And this much he did accomplish: he reached the place first. But almost as soon as he had recognized Buffalo Bill’s yell, Boyd Bennett spurred back toward the bound girl. He feared the scout would do exactly the thing he was attempting. Knowing that Cody must have followed them here for the express purpose of saving White Antelope, he feared the shrewdness of his enemy.
Cody found the spot. A camp-fire burned low, but revealed the girl writhing in her bonds at one side. The scout bounded to her side just as the thunder of Bennett’s horse sounded down the hill.
“All right, White Antelope! ’Tis I—the Long Hair!” whispered the scout. “My horse is not far away. I will save you—— The devil!”
The scout broke off with a savage exclamation. He had hoped to slash through the girl’s bonds and carry her to his horse, which he had left in a thicket not far away. But for once in his life the scout had made a terrible oversight!
Chief had picked up a small pebble in his hoof late that afternoon, and Buffalo Bill had got down and pried it out with the point of his bowie. He had stuck the knife into a sheath which hung to his saddle-bow, and had forgotten it until this very instant. He had nothing with which to cut the girl’s bonds.