Suddenly rifle shots rang out and bowstrings twanged.
Givens fell, with a bullet in his brain, tumbling heavily to the ground.
Bullets cut through Nomad’s clothing, and an arrow struck and stuck in his beaver-skin cap, its feathered end projecting from the fur, forming a strange-looking plume.
Nomad tried to turn Nebuchadnezzar around in the trail, but the Blackfoot rush was made too quickly; and, though he went down fighting, he was subdued, and made a prisoner, being beaten to the earth before he submitted.
Nebuchadnezzar pawed and squealed, rushed on the Blackfeet with his greenish teeth clicking and snapping, and lunged out with his twinkling heels; but Nebuchadnezzar, too, was made a prisoner.
Nomad’s effort to aid a needy friend had made him a prisoner of the Blackfeet.
CHAPTER XXVII.
AGAIN ON THE TRAIL.
Buffalo Bill and Pawnee Bill floated on down the cañon river until they came to the open land beyond the “tunnel,” where they discovered indications that Blackfeet had been on the shores there not long before.
This made them wary; they could not be sure that all the Blackfeet were gone. Accordingly, they concealed their canoe, and searched the ground along the shore.
Bruce Clayton was with them, using his eyes as well as he could, but unable to “read” what he saw on the ground, seeing but hoof marks of horses, and some moccasin tracks in the damp soil by the margin of the river.