The quartette were speedily mounted, Gopher Gid being seated behind Mouseskin, the Indian boy, who, for fear of being denounced as the slayer of Feel-the-Sky, had united his fortunes with those of our friends, and was leaving the Indian village—never to return? We shall see.
All at once a strange sound fell upon the ears of all.
“The horn!” exclaimed Rube. “There it goes again! Look! the red imp is goin' to run off. He's mad! crazy! bewitched! Catch 'im Mid—thar! he's gone!”
The Screamin' Eagle had spoken truly, for the young Sioux, with one sweep of his right arm had flung Gopher Gid to the ground, and dashed in the direction from which the bugle-blast had proceeded.
It was near the close of the day that followed the startling blast from Custer's bugle, when a handsome white man emerged from a cave in one of the deep canyons of Sioux land, and looked up at the dark high cliffs.
“Don't I know every foot of this old place,” he murmured. “I've been here before. The girl's in the best quarters. She's a veritable tigress, but I'll make a lamb of her before I make her Mrs. Golden George.”
With his mind on Dora, he began to climb the narrow stairway, with a cocked revolver in his hand. He thought alone of his antagonist of bygone days, and not of the man who, lying on the ground above, was waiting for his coming. The dark eyes that looked through a clump of bushes at the top of the fissure flashed with triumph, as they knew the man who was slowly ascending. It was Golden George, who saw his enemy and started back, while his revolver fell from his hand and rolled down the stony way. There was another at his head—behind it the devilish eye of Midnight Jack, who seeing the road-agent's pointed revolver, quick as a flash, he flung his arms up, knocked it aside, and threw his body back.
A terrible scene followed between the two deadly enemies. Struggling desperately with each other, they rolled together down the steep ravine, to the amazement of a brace of persons who suddenly appeared above.
But they soon disappeared from view, for they had grappled like bears, and had evidently rolled to the bottom. Rube and Gopher, somewhat surprised at the sudden disappearance of the two, ventured down the fissures, believing that the antagonists had swept around a bend.
They heard voices inside a stupendous wall a long way down the ravine.