The Cheyennes bunched together, yelling, and began to shoot into the darkness in the direction of the yells and the revolver fire.
Buffalo Bill’s time for action had come. He jerked at the rein of the horse which carried the girl, turning it about; and he yelled to Wild Bill:
“Now is the time!”
The words he used were in the Blackfeet Indian tongue, and were not understood by the Cheyennes, though they were understood by Wild Bill as well as if they had been English words.
Wild Bill yelled back in the same tongue, to show that he understood.
It seemed that the effort would be successful.
As Buffalo Bill and Wild Bill turned their horses about, Buffalo Bill dragging at the rawhide rein of the bridle of the horse ridden by the girl, a half dozen of the young Cheyennes turned in the same direction.
In a flash Buffalo Bill, by his quick movement, had become their leader, showing them by his movement the direction in which they should ride, though that was far enough from his intent. And so, pell-mell, through the darkness, rode Wild Bill and Buffalo Bill and the half dozen young Cheyenne bucks, who were in a frenzy of excitement and fear, thinking that the troopers were upon them.
They screamed their yells, and, whirling around on the backs of their ponies, they poured a stream of rifle and revolver shots in the direction of the firing of Ben Stevens.
This bunching and crowding together of the Cheyennes and of the horses ridden by the scouts and the girl, caused some wild stumbles and much fractious rearing of the horses.