With one swift circling motion Buffalo Bill drew his knife and cut the rope that picketed his horse. In another instant he was on its back, and then, with a wild dash, he broke through the thin line of outlaws on that side.
He knew that if he returned to assist Pizen Jane his life would pay for it; and he preferred that she should fall into the hands of these men, leaving him alive, so that he might aid her later; a thing he certainly could not do if he rushed down there and fell under the fire of their revolvers. Yet he had a certain twinge of conscience, which seemed to accuse him of cowardice and an abandonment of Pizen Jane.
“But she can take care of herself, if any person in the world can, and later I can do something for her,” he thought, as he drove his horse pell-mell through the cracking bushes and the whipping branches of the low trees.
The outlaws near him yelled, and took snapshots at him; and soon other shots came ripping through the brush after him.
But he had cleared the cordon which Snaky Pete was certain he had drawn around the camp; and, with a good horse under him, he felt secure, even though that horse had now neither saddle nor bridle.
He waved his hand grimly in the direction of the yelling outlaws, as his horse galloped on into the open, and he saw the gray prairies at the foot of the mountains lying before him in the light of the rising moon.
“Catch me, if you can!” he shouted, almost gay in the thought of the manner in which the outlaws had let him slip through the meshes of their net.
Then he recalled that now both the woman and old Nick Nomad were prisoners in their hands, while he had escaped by the narrowest margin; and, realizing the delicate and dangerous work lying now before him, he mentally girded himself anew for the desperate work thus laid on him.
CHAPTER IX.
A DEFIANT PRISONER.
Pizen Jane was aroused from heavy slumber by the yells of the road agents and the crackling fire of their revolvers. She sprang up in bewilderment and momentary terror.