CHAPTER XXX.

THE DEFEAT OF THE BLACKFEET.

Wandering Bear, the medicine man captured by Buffalo Bill, was a shrewd old scoundrel, gifted not only with many natural qualities, but some acquired ones, for the part he played as medicine man of the Blackfeet.

Like most, if not all, medicine men among savage peoples, he resorted to tricks, some of them very clever; and one of his tricks was akin to that shown on many a theatrical stage to-day, the getting out of tightly set cords bound about his wrists and ankles.

For a long time after darkness fell, old Wandering Bear lay twisting quietly at the cords that held him.

He had seen Buffalo Bill paint and decorate himself and depart, and he guessed shrewdly what that meant.

Also he saw that the white rangers were close down to the village, in the scrub that covered the sides of the hills, and he was sure that an attack on the village was contemplated, and that the departure of the pretended medicine man had something to do with it and could mean nothing but harm to the Blackfeet.

He thought most of himself and his personal peril, as was but natural. What these white men would do to him eventually he did not know, but he anticipated nothing less than death. As for the other Blackfoot, the one who had come to meet him and had been captured by Buffalo Bill, Wandering Bear paid slight attention to him; his own safety was the thing for which he longed and now worked.

At last the cords on his wrists fell away, and by some clever twisting he got his hands down to his ankles and untied the cords that held them.

After thus releasing himself, he lay a while, stretching his arms and legs, to get them in condition. Then suddenly he bounded to his feet with a startling yell, knocked over the ranger who stood close by him, and was gone like a shot out of a gun.

The rangers did not even fire a shot at him, for they did not wish to announce to the Blackfeet below that they were so close to the village. Yet they pursued the escaping medicine man, a pursuit that was hopeless from the first.

He disappeared, to appear in the Blackfoot village, leaping on and denouncing Buffalo Bill, to the amazement of the Blackfeet who heard and saw him.

Buffalo Bill knew that the game was up. If he escaped with his life he would have to move quickly, and do something desperate.

Instantly two wolf howls rose on the startled air, floating out to the wild range riders in the near-by hills. Then the scout struck down the medicine man, who was trying to seize him, and darted into the lodge of Crazy Snake.

Lena Forest was in there, and at the entrance was Wide Foot.

The intruder hurled the old hag sprawling; then caught the girl by the hand and jumped to the rear of the lodge. His knife flashed, and a tearing sound followed, as he ripped the lodge skin from top to bottom, opening a way through.

“Come!” he said, and he pulled the girl along, while the howls of the Indians rose in a very pandemonium.

By diving thus through the lodge Buffalo Bill gained a slight start of his foes, but it was only enough to enable him to get out of the lodge and run toward the shadows of the next one, for the angry Blackfeet came swarming around the lodge and through it, yelling for his life.

He shaped his course toward the lodge where Nomad and Clayton were held, and gained it a few yards in advance of his pursuers. Here he thrust the knife into the hands of the startled and wildly excited girl.

“They’re in there,” he said; “release them while I hold back the Indians. Jump lively!”

She rushed into the lodge with the knife, the Indian who had been guarding it having deserted his post.

Buffalo Bill stepped into the entrance; and, turning about there, he drew his revolver and shot down the foremost of the oncoming redskins.

As the reports of his revolver broke forth, from the hills came the wild, charging cheers of the range riders, who had heard and were now answering the wolf howls.

The charging cheers of the rangers and his own revolver fire checked the advance of the enraged Blackfeet. Lena Forest was thus given time in which to release old Nomad and her lover.

They came to the lodge entrance hurriedly, putting themselves by the side of the scout.

“If we had weepons, Buffler!” old Nomad panted, “we’d lay out a few of them howlin’ red devils!”

Clayton was too astounded to speak; but he caught the girl in his arms and seemed resolved to shield her by placing his body between her and the angry Blackfeet.

Buffalo Bill reached under his blanket, and, pulling out a loaded revolver, passed it to Nomad, who received it with a yell of joy.

“Waugh! Buffler, we stand tergether and we go down tergether. Whoop!”

The startled Blackfeet were not given much time in which to rally, for already the thunder of the pony hoofs of the charging range riders was heard beyond the village. Then the wild riders were in the very village itself, shooting and yelling, and the Blackfeet were in flight.

Short and sharp was that surprise and that battle.

The Blackfeet who were not killed or captured fled to the hills for refuge. However, numbers of them were captured, and the village was given to the flames.

Old Crazy Snake escaped, with his principal warriors, among them the handsome young chief, Lightfoot, and the crafty medicine man, Wandering Bear.

A week later Crazy Snake sent down a piteous petition, assuring the white men that he was their good friend, that he had always been their good friend, and would be their good friend forever, if they would but stop chasing him in the mountains.

Thus ended the Blackfoot uprising, and no more the bloody arrow, the mark of Crazy Snake’s vengeance, gleamed red on the bosoms of men murdered by that treacherous old chieftain. He had been soundly whipped; and a whipped Indian can be the meekest creature on the earth.