Grabbing the redskin, Buffalo Bill lifted his writhing form in both hands and cast him into the tank near which the battle was taking place.
Never was the scout’s strong arm more in evidence than it was then.
A third Indian was creeping toward him. He darted at the warrior like a fury, they came to hand-grips, and in the resulting struggle both tumbled from the toe-path between two of the tanks.
The Indian had a knife in his hand; but in the wrestling-match, the point had been turned toward the Indian’s own breast. In the heavy fall from the plank-walk, the knife was driven to the hilt, and the redskin straightened out with the rattle in his throat.
The scout raced out from among the tanks, to find that the men from the bunk-house and the mill had joined forces and were in hot pursuit of Bascomb and the remnant of his red followers.
Buffalo Bill did not join in the pursuit, but made directly for the laboratory.
There he found a broken window, an overturned assayer’s furnace, two bags loaded with amalgam, and two wounded men.
One of the wounded men was the baron; the other was Jacobs.
McGowan, white and weak, sat in a chair by a table, taking a swig from a flask. Old Nomad stood grimly over the bags of amalgam.