Then he still further gathered together his strength and his courage, and, getting a horse from a stable near, he mounted, white-faced and panting, but courageous and undaunted, and rode out of the town himself, intending to be close to the mob of pursuers.
The drunken mob scattered as they left the town behind, some falling out and returning almost at once, others continuing on. But though Slocum and Rainey led, the pursuit was but a disorganized and disorderly thing, and showed little capability.
“They’ll never do anything,” said Denton.
He turned from the racing and drunken pursuers, and rode away alone, shaping his course in the direction he believed the false Buffalo Bill had taken.
He had gone but a little way in this manner when he heard galloping hoofs. Some one else was heading in the same course.
A mounted form loomed up out of the darkness, and this mounted form drew rein.
“What, ho!”
“Who’s there?” said Denton, clutching the revolver he had armed himself with before starting.
“Are you Ben Denton?”
Ben did not recognize the voice, and to be thus addressed rather astonished him.