“Sergeant, you have done well in your fight, and I appreciate your having come to meet me. It saved me. Tell your men I want each one of them in my band of scouts, so I have my eye upon them. You may have to fight again, but do it to the death as I’ll get help to you as soon as I can. Good night, and luck.”
Buffalo Bill grasped the hand of the brave negro, who replied:
“We’ll die game, sir, if we have to; but we depend on you, Massa Bill, for you’re the only man who can save us, and you will, sir, I know you will.”
The deep voice quivered, and Buffalo Bill turned away, going rapidly down the gully to where he had left his horses.
He passed within a dozen feet of an Indian outpost of several braves, heard them talking, and the smoke of their pipes reached him, while he saw a spark of fire.
But he went on, reached his horses, mounted and rode off at a sweeping gallop toward the fort.
At length he halted and muttered:
“It is taking big chances, but I will do it. I can hide my pack horse there and it will cut off a dozen miles, if I do risk the lives of my horse and myself in making the leap, which is all of twenty feet.”
He turned off the trail, just as the moon, on the wane, rose to light his way.
A roar came to his ears, a roar of falling water, and he soon halted on the banks of a foaming stream.