As the iron-gray shot forward toward the prostrate horse, the trapper unloosed the coil of rope that hung at the saddle-bow, and presently he leaped to the ground beside his victim.
“Now, Blackey!” he cried, in tones of triumph, but the next moment a wild cry of horror followed.
He had scarcely touched the ground when Tecumseh, finding himself masterless, reared on his haunches, then bounded forward with an unearthly snort.
George Long dropped from his perch and fell at the trapper’s feet, while Charley Shafer clung to the reins with the grim tenacity of despair.
The “lost band” was yet in sight, and Tecumseh seemed to fly toward them on the pinions of the wind.
He tried to unhorse his young rider; but the youth griped the gray mane with his teeth and incircled the strong neck with his arms. His hat and rifle had fallen to the ground at the outset of his wild ride, and the horror-stricken spectators knew that he did not possess a single weapon—not even a knife.
Tecumseh was beyond rifle-shot before the trapper recovered from his fright, and George Long covered his face with his hands to hide his young comrade’s doom from his sight!
“Curse that horse!” grated Frontier Shack, breaking the unearthly silence. “He never had the devil in him afore like he hes to-day. Them horses made ’im think what he was once, and now he’s gone back to his old life.”
“And Charley—poor Charley—is riding to his death.”
Frontier Shack shook his head dolefully, as he gazed at the horse and his despairing rider, now a dark speck in the distance.