“Steady!” shouted a new voice, and the next moment Tom Kyle, the renegade, appeared on the scene, at the head of a score of warriors.
George looked up and saw the Pale Pawnee doff his serape and plumed hat. Then he handed his pistol-belt to an Indian, and urged his horse into the fatal river.
“Pull steady!” he cried, glancing over his shoulder at his red-men. “We’ll get the boy out yet—the boy who shot Red Eagle!”
If George Long could have uttered an intelligible word, he would have flung the lie into his would-be-rescuer’s teeth. He saw the motive that prompted the renegade’s action; he would rescue him for the purpose of covering up a dastardly crime of his own, for, as yet, the youth had not shed a drop of Indian blood.
Nearer and nearer came the renegade. His steed sunk at each step, and Tom Kyle spurred him out of the devouring sand before it could clutch its victim, and at last he drew rein beside the youth. George had sunk but a few inches since the tightning of the lasso; the Indians’ strength had counteracted the work of the sand; but they could not extricate him. It wanted a strong upward pull, and that was coming in the arm of the renegade.
“You’re in a bad fix, boy,” cried Tom Kyle, reaching down for the motionless form lying on the water. “The Indians were about giving you up when I came, and you couldn’t hire one to ride out here and try and pull you out with all the scalps in Christendom.”
He caught the young Ohioan’s shoulder, and shouted to the Indians on shore to loosen the tension of the lasso. Instantly it was done, and steadily Tom Kyle rose in the heavy Spanish stirrups, pulling the boy upward with all the strength he could command.
While he exerted his strength, his noble horse was sinking, and thus loosening the sand about the boy’s legs. It sprung to its new victim—the horse—and as the spur-scarred flanks touched the water, George Long felt himself being pulled through the waves, while a thousand hellish cries filled his ears.
The renegade saw that he could not save his horse, and stripping the accouterments from him, he sprung into the water and swam ashore.
A few frantic struggles settled the brave steed’s fate, and at last the water rushed over the sandy grave.