It was too far to leap with his knife. The bow and arrows of the dead chief came in handy. In a flash the crouching scout fitted an arrow to the bowstring and drew the shaft to its head. There he waited, still as a graven image, until the horse and rider were almost upon him.
Then he let drive the arrow. It sped with fearful force, aimed at the throat of the red chieftain that all death-cry might be stilled.
True was the aim and fatal the shot. The arrow penetrated the Indian’s throat, and its head stuck out a hand’s breadth at the back of his neck. Without a sound the Indian toppled from the pony’s back.
The horse snorted and sprang forward. His escape might have been as dire a calamity for the scout as the death-yell of the chieftain. If the pony dashed away across the valley, the sentinels would surely be aroused.
But the animal made but one leap. Like a shadow Texas Jack leaped up and caught the rawhide bridle which had been snatched from the dead man’s hand. He brought the pony to an abrupt halt. Instantly he swung himself upon the bare back of the animal, well used to riding Indian fashion, and guided him to the other side of the thicket, leaving the chief where he had fallen. He did not stop to strip him of his arms; he had quite all he could carry, and he wanted his own rifle.
All seemed to have gone well, and it looked to the scout at that moment as though the way before him to the fort was clear sailing. But just as he was congratulating himself on this belief a wild and ear-splitting yell arose on the night, and from a spot not far in his rear. First one voice and then another took up the yell—it was the warning of the red man when he finds the trail of the secret enemy!
Texas Jack knew well what it meant. The first Indian he had killed, and whose place beside the dead tree he had taken, had been found by the sentinels. They knew that some shrewd enemy had been at work, and their yells aroused the braves all over the valley.
The cries told the redskins as plainly as words that some white man was trying to break through their lines. Major Baldwin had thrown a line of sentinels outside the stockade, and these heard the cries and understood as well. They passed back the word that either Buffalo Bill or Texas Jack was coming.
And so the scout was coming—on the back of the half-wild Indian pony. The danger behind him was great, nor was that still ahead slight. Some of the young braves, eager for scalps, had crept forward in the darkness, hoping to shoot some white man on the towers, or one that ventured beyond the stockade walls. As the war-whoop was raised these young braves started back for their lines on the jump.
One of them saw the scout coming up the hill at full speed. Although Texas Jack was still in Indian dress, the warrior decided that no honest redskin would be riding in that direction at such a pace!