CHAPTER XIII. THE CHASE OF THE WHITE ANTELOPE.

The Border King did not pick his way as he spurred the great white horse down the declivity after the flying Indian girl. He allowed Chief to guide himself, for he felt confidence in the horse’s sense. They went down the hill like an avalanche, and an avalanche of small stones and broken brush went with them.

To the troopers behind on the ridge, to the defenders of the fort, and to the Indians themselves who saw the charge of the big white horse, it seemed that neither horse nor rider could reach the bottom alive.

But Chief did not even lose his stride in going down, and at the bottom, in answer to a sharp tug on the rein, he turned and shot away along the trail after the disappearing White Antelope.

Oak Heart and his braves saw the act, and knew Cody’s reason for chasing the young squaw. Half the army of Sioux would have started in pursuit; but Dick Danforth’s troopers were sweeping down the hill by a smoother road, and would cut the Indians off from the entrance to the cañon. The reds were balked.

Dick Danforth’s blood was up. He had been born a Western boy, and, as he had intimated in his recent conversation with Cody, he had bitter reason to hate the redskins. He had been made an orphan, and his young life ruined, by these very Sioux.

He spoke to the bugler, and the wild notes of the charge rang out across the valley. Two score the troopers numbered, and there were five or six hundred Indians against them; but the bold fellows were ready to dash into the midst of the redskins.

Besides, Major Baldwin, seeing what desperate chances the troopers from Fort Resistence were taking, ordered Captain Ed. Keyes to charge with every able-bodied cavalryman the stockade contained. The fort gates were flung open, and out upon the Indians, already wavering and uncertain, charged Keyes and his troop, sabers in hand. They had no ammunition, but they wielded their sabers like fiends. The Indians, most of them unmounted, were borne down, trampled under the feet of the big cavalry horses, and slashed unmercifully on one side by Keyes, while Danforth came up on the other, his men shooting at short range with carbines and pistols, and finally taking to the sword also.

And while this wild carnage was in progress, Buffalo Bill and the White Antelope were racing along the trail in the cañon, the girl intent upon carrying her father’s message and arousing the redskins lying in ambush miles away, while the scout was just as determined that, without injuring her, she should be kept from carrying out her plan.

It was still dark down here in the cañon. Although the sun was already showing his red face above the eastern hills, as yet there was not light enough to dissipate the gloom at the bottom of this deep cut in the hills. Indeed, Buffalo Bill followed the girl more by sense of sound than sense of sight for the first half-mile.

Then the pace of the great white horse told. His stride was too much for the Indian pony, no matter how cruelly White Antelope lashed it. Steadily the scout drew nearer.

The gray light filtered down from above and showed to the scout the young squaw turning her head again and again to watch the progress of her pursuer. She was evidently measuring with fearful glance the rapidly lessening distance between them.

Buffalo Bill might easily have killed her as she leaned forward on her pony’s neck, urging him with whip and voice. His face was very set and stern, too; but the sternness was not that which masked his countenance when he was bent upon an enemy’s death.

He saw, indeed, the frightened maiden before him, flying madly from his approach; but his mind was laboring with thoughts which carried him back for many years--thoughts which had often embittered his mind and robbed him of his rest at night. He remembered this beautiful girl’s mother and how he would have saved her from her awful fate; yet that was not to be! And here he was pursuing the daughter--yet in a far different manner.

The girl looked back again. Her beautiful face had paled, losing all its naturally rich coloring. Although Buffalo Bill had held her in his power only the day before and had not harmed her, this wild child of the forest and plain saw no reason for his sparing her now. And, indeed, there _was_ no apparent reason. She saw in his attempt to capture her instead of killing her outright, merely the desire of the warrior to parade a captive before his admiring brethren, and then, perhaps, she would be made a slave as the redskins made slaves of the white squaws they stole!

White Antelope had no reason for believing in the honor and tenderness of white men. She had been taught from childhood that they were her deadly enemies. Her mother had died too soon after her birth to instil into the maiden’s mind any different belief than that held by the savages about her.

So the girl looked back at Cody in terror, and made up her savage mind to die rather than be captured by the scout.

But she would sell her life dearly as may be. The day before Long Hair, as she called him, had disarmed her of the light revolver which had been a most precious possession. Now she had only her bow and arrows--a weapon that is not easily used in shooting behind one while the pony is at full speed.

But this was what the girl tried to do. She strung her bow and seized an arrow from the quiver which hung over her shoulder. Then, while the pony was still paddling along the trail at his best pace, she turned her agile young body about, drew the shaft to its head, and let drive at the coming scout.

He ducked as he saw her action; but the shaft went through his hat and carried it away. Instantly she fitted another arrow to the bowstring and sent it likewise at her enemy. Cody slipped over on the far side of Chief, hanging by toe and one hand to the running animal, an Indian trick that no brave could do better than the scout himself. The second shaft went over his saddle in about the place his heart might have been had he been sitting upright!

The Indian maiden was not to be balked so easily. She turned again to urge her pony on, hoping, it is likely, that Long Hair would bob up into the saddle again. But he saw she had a third arrow on the string, and he remained where he was.

But to tamely endure such a persecution as this was not the scout’s intention. Besides, he feared that the White Antelope might shoot Chief.

As he slung himself over the side of the big white horse, Cody had drawn one of the loaded pistols from its holster. With this gun he was a marvelously accurate shot. It had a barrel almost as long as the old-fashioned derringer, and in the hand of a trained marksman could do the execution of a finely sighted rifle.

Under the horse’s neck he had a very clear view of the girl on the pony in front, although she could not easily aim at any vital part of the scout in the position in which he hung from Chief. As the young squaw turned sidewise to larrup her pony again with the quirt hanging to her wrist, Buffalo Bill took a snap shot at the quiver of arrows at her back.

It was a perilous shot--if he did not wish to harm the girl. Few marksmen would have dared try it. William Tell was a bungler, indeed, as compared with some of the marksmen of our great West, and William F. Cody was, in his day, the best of them all!

His pistol ball sped true. The thong from which the quiver hung was severed, and if the hot lead seared the girl’s shoulder in passing it did no more!

The quiver fell to the ground; but the girl had still a remaining arrow--it was already upon her bowstring. She turned swiftly to drive it home--perhaps into the heart of the great white horse that bore her enemy so swiftly.

Buffalo Bill realized the danger to his noble steed. He sprang upright into the saddle, the smoking pistol still in his hand. His appearance as a fair target attracted the Indian maiden’s aim. She drew the arrowhead to her ear.

But the white man’s pistol spoke before she could release the feathered shaft.

Crack!

The long-barreled revolver spit its death-dealing bullet, and the smoke enveloped Buffalo Bill’s head for a moment and then passed away.

Twang!

That was the snap of the bowstring. But the arrow flew wildly in the air, over the scout’s head. The bullet had severed the deer tendon of which the string was made just as the girl released the shaft. Buffalo Bill had taken another desperate shot--and had won. The bow was put out of commission, but the bullet had not touched the fair user of the bow.

White Antelope threw away her broken implement in wrath, and lashed her pony again. But he, poor creature, was coming to the end of his leash. His little legs could not carry even so light a burden as herself much farther.

Buffalo Bill saw that this was so, and he spoke to Chief, dropping the pistol back into its holster again. The great white horse redoubled his effort. He shot along the trail as though he was fresh from the stable.

This spurt of speed brought the scout beside the Indian girl and her mount so quickly that White Antelope had no time to cast herself to the ground as she had intended. Even as she screamed and would have leaped to certain death, the white horse came neck and neck with her mount, Cody leaned over and seized her around the waist with his right arm, and, drawing his pistol this time with his left hand, shot the Indian pony through the head!

He could not afford to have the relieved beast run on to the ambushed Indians miles up the cañon and so warn them of what was being done. The pony staggered on a few yards and fell dead. Chief leaped the fallen body and then came to a stop.

Meanwhile, the young squaw had been struggling in Cody’s grasp. She had one more weapon, and out it flashed from the bead-worked sheath at her side. It was a keen scalping-knife, and with a single downward thrust she might have ended Cody’s earthly career.

However, the scout was watching for just this little play. As the bright blade descended toward his breast, he caught the point upon his pistol. The blade snapped, and with a single blow he knocked the handle and butt of the blade from the girl’s hand!

“The White Antelope is in Long Hair’s power. Let her lie quietly,” commanded the scout in Sioux.

He placed the girl before him, picked up Chief’s bridle, turned the horse about, and they started down the cañon again. The girl did not struggle now, or seek to escape. She was beaten. He could feel her body shake with emotion; but true to Indian custom and tradition, she did not weep.

Cody feared that some of the Indians might have got by Dick Danforth and entered the cañon to follow him; so he went back very circumspectly. If he was caught between two fires he could merely sell his life as dearly as possible; but he would have kept the men in ambush from coming to the help of their tribesmen in time to do any good.

Soon the noise of battle reached their ears. The girl gave no sign of interest, nor did Cody speak to her. In truth, the scout had a bitter problem to consider.

What should he do with the girl? She was in his power. At least, he had separated her from her father and from her Indian friends. But was the time ripe for her to be introduced to white people--to those in Fort Advance, for instance?

It was a time when men’s passions were deeply stirred. There would be murder and hatred in the hearts of the whites as well as in that of the redskins. Of what good to bring this half-breed girl into contact with whites who felt a desire to kill every creature with Indian blood in its veins? And why take the girl away from the red men at the moment when her own heart was bitter as gall toward the whites? What good would come of such an act? Buffalo Bill’s good sense answered for him:

“None!”

Nor did the whites desire her as a hostage. To hold her prisoner would be to strengthen her affiliation with the Sioux. No, no! She must go free--if Cody were free himself.

This question could not be answered until he had ridden to the end of the cañon, and he went on very circumspectly.