Sprawled out, and screaming, the fellow fell all the way back to the shore, and there, squirming with the agony of the wound which was in a vital part, he rolled into the river, and the black current swept him swiftly down-stream.
He passed the first canoe that had been retarding, while the rifleman tried a second particular shot at the scout. The drowning man yelled for help. He even snatched at the gunwale of the canoe as he was swept by.
Instantly Boyd Bennett seized a pistol from his belt and deliberately shot the drowning man through the head. Perhaps, if the latter had seized the canoe, he would have overturned it and sacrificed the four other lives; yet it was a desperately cruel act!
Meanwhile Cody had leaped aside, escaping the second shot of the rifleman in the remaining canoe; and then, before the man could sit down and the canoe could shoot ahead, he dropped him cleanly with a ball through the heart!
In five minutes the bloody battle was over. But two of the bandits were left alive. The other five had sunk to the bottom of the river, while the remaining two, and the White Antelope, were being carried swiftly down the stream, and by a current now so powerful that they could not steer to the bank on either side. Just below were the worst series of rapids on the entire river!
CHAPTER XLIII.
MAN TO MAN AT LAST.
Buffalo Bill knew the peril which threatened the two bandits and the girl quite as soon as they knew it themselves. But he was handicapped a bit now by his wound, which bled profusely. He had to wait to bind it up roughly, so that the blood would stop flowing, before he could pay much attention to the endangered trio in the canoe.
Ere then the craft was swiftly speeding down the river, going almost as fast as an ordinary horse could trot. Buffalo Bill whistled Chief to him, sprang into the saddle, and galloped down the trail. It was some minutes before he overtook the boat.
There was no danger then of anybody aboard it shooting at him. Boyd Bennett in the stern and his last comrade in the bow were having all they could handle in steering the craft. Rocks and snags began to crop up in the current, and they were now tossed this way, then that, while the foaming water boiled almost into the frail craft!