The Laramie man paused. To pass over the open space might expose him to the full view of those above at any moment, should a torch suddenly flare above the thicket. Yet he had no doubt some of his pards were hiding in the brush and perhaps confronted by the same dilemma.
Hickok chuckled as a scheme presented itself.
“Perhaps those fellows think they are going to sit there, like a turtle on a log, till the harvest moon, but I doubt it,” he muttered.
He hurried back until he was on the other side of the bluff, and had the horsemen outlined against the light of the fires beyond; then he quickly but quietly climbed up behind the group, one of whom was shouting to those with the torches.
Hickok heard a white man speak and recognized the voice of Price. He had crept to within a scant rod of the heels of the ponies, whose heads were drooping after a long run.
Suddenly Hickok launched himself on hands and feet at the very heels of the ponies, emitting at the same time an uncanny cross between a bark and a growl and switching vigorously at the animals’ heels with a long withe he had brought for the purpose.
The effect was surprising to the riders, to say the least. They had no sooner heard the slight rustle behind them than they were startled by the mad snarling that might have been made by a half dozen catamounts and a grizzly or two thrown in. Then their ponies nearly leaped out from under them in a mad dash to get away.
The frightened mustangs dashed down the hill, plunged across the stream, and, before the surprised torch bearers could guess at what was happening, some of them were bowled over by the stampeded ponies.
In the midst of the hubbub, Wild Bill gave the signal of the pards from the top of the mound. Instantly he was answered by the scout from the ravine, and a minute later the pards had clasped hands and with Nomad were hurrying toward the hiding place of the horses.
When well beyond earshot of the redskins, Nomad turned on Wild Bill.