Discovering now that the man under the Indian blanket was not an Indian, it started to leap back, at the same time giving a short bark, like a dog that has treed game.
“Curse you!” muttered the scout.
At the same time his left hand shot out like lightning from under the blanket.
The dog was about to bark again when that hand caught it. Then it yelped, as a cur does when trodden upon. But it was the dog’s last yelp, and it was cut short. The hand that held the keen-bladed knife shot out from under the blanket; and, as the dog was drawn forward by the other hand, the knife ripped its throat open.
The yelp and the flouncing of the dog had brought some Indians out of the lodge. The scout, lying quiet again, with the bloody knife in one hand and one of his ready revolvers in the other, heard the warriors talking.
One of them, after a few words, began to walk around the lodge, in the direction of the scout.
“If I lie here I shall have to kill that Indian as I did the dog; and I’ll be discovered, no doubt, after which there will be the greatest row and hubbub here any one ever heard. I guess it’s time for me to sneak.”
He did not “sneak,” however. He was still concealed from the approaching Indian by the intervening tent wall. So he arose boldly to his feet and as boldly walked on around the council lodge, away from the advancing redskin.
Almost any other man would have jumped up and fled out through the village, trusting to his legs to carry him to a point of safety. But that would have involved risks which Buffalo Bill did not care to take.
Hence he walked straight on. As he came out into the moonlight and toward the front of the council house, he was seen by one of the Indians who had stood talking near the lodge door.