“My pack horse will be safe here,” said Cody, and he quickly unsaddled the animal.
Then he stripped his own horse of his heavy Mexican saddle, laid with it his rifle and belt of arms, save one revolver, took off his boots, hunting coat, and broad-brimmed sombrero, and approached the steep banks of the river.
It was a cliff, and all of twenty feet down to the water. A quarter of a mile below was a fall over which the stream wildly rushed, and across from him a hundred yards or more lay the other shore, the banks low and sandy.
“It will save a dozen miles, Buckskin, and we can make it—we must!” he said, in his decided way, and he quickly made a bridle of his stake of rope, leaped across the bare back of his splendid horse, wheeled suddenly and rode rapidly toward the cliff.
“Now, Buckskin, make the leap, and by it save the lives of my black troopers!” cried Buffalo Bill, as he urged his horse directly out upon the mad leap.
Buckskin did not hesitate; he seemed to feel, with his master, that only by the leap from the dizzy height could he save the lives of human beings by cutting off a dozen miles in the trail and getting help from the fort to them before they would be wiped out by the Indians.
The noble horse leaped far out from the cliff, hung in the air, it seemed, for one precious second, and then went down swiftly into the raging flood.
He struck hard, sank from sight, though Buffalo Bill held his revolver far above his head to prevent its getting wet, for those were not the days of the present improved cartridges.
Then the horse arose, and his rider guided him toward the other shore.
It was a wild current, and they were swept rapidly down toward the falls; but the horse swam with vigor, and stripped of his saddle and trappings he was not hampered, Buffalo Bill helping him with all his power.