Already the chief of the bandits was almost upon him. Boyd Bennett rode down the hill yelling like a fiend.
“Fly!” murmured the girl. “They will kill you.”
“Curse it! I am foiled for the time. But, remember, White Antelope, I am near you and will release you yet, and serve your enemy as he deserves!”
With these words the scout dropped to all fours, and, as stealthily and silently as a wolf, crept away in the darkness.
CHAPTER XLII.
THE AVENGER.
The gang of outlaws had been depleted by five. One had fallen on the river-bank, and four others had either been killed or so badly wounded that they fell captive to the freighters on the side of the ridge. There were but eight who gathered about the spot where White Antelope was left tied, when the fight was over.
And they feared pursuit and a worse thrashing than they had already endured. They clamored to be led away from the place, and Boyd Bennett, gnashing his teeth in impotent rage, was forced to agree.
Every man of them had a fear of Buffalo Bill, the Border King. How he could have gotten ahead of them, and been in the teamsters’ encampment when they made their attack, added to the superstitious veneration in which the outlaws had begun to hold the great scout. Heretofore they had held Boyd Bennett as a better man than Cody; but now they began to doubt.
Besides, several of them did not approve of his bearing away the Indian girl from her village. While Bennett had posed as the medicine chief of the Sioux, they were all sure of being treated well by the savages. Some of them had taken Indian wives and were living in ease and plenty—the lazy, irresponsible existence of the “squaw-man.”