CHAPTER XLI. “ON GUARD!

“First of all,” said the captain of the freighters, “I want you to take command, Cody, as I said.”

“No, no!” the scout hastened to reply. “I would not take that upon myself.”

“I insist.”

“No. I must be free myself to act in this other matter I speak of. If I see a chance to run off the girl while you fellows are handling the outlaws, I must do so.”

“And leave us for a redskin?”

“That is it,” returned Cody seriously. “My duty is first to her at this time.”

“But that is nonsense, man! People of a blood should stick together. Let the red squaw go.”

“She’s got white blood in her better than either yours or mine, sir!” snapped the scout.

“Oh! she’s a half-breed?”

“She is. But I am not here to discuss White Antelope. Time is passing. I will advise you to the best of my ability in this fight; but I cannot accept the responsibility of command.”

“All I can do, then, is to rouse up the other boys and make ready to receive boarders.”

“But there is more than one way of doing that,” said Cody, with a smile which the other did not see in the dark tent.

“Heh?”

“No use in rousing out the other men in a way to show the outlaws you are expecting them.”

“Oh, shucks! are they watching us already?”

“They sure are. All I feared in making my way to your tent was their sharp eyes. I knew what your guards would be.”

“You don’t have a very high opinion of us mule-skinners, then?” said the captain, rather sharply.

“I have a very poor opinion indeed of men who will be careless on this trail,” said Buffalo Bill sternly. “Recklessness is never bravery.”

“Huh!” grunted the other.

“Cook, you creep out at the rear and speak to the sentinel at the back of the camp. Keep close to the ground and tell him to have a care. Let him step across and speak to the guard by the river--casually, remember.”

“All right, sir,” said the cook, recognizing the tone of authority.

“Then you creep over to the farther tent and awaken the boys carefully. The captain here had better attend to the other two. Go on your hands and knees, boys! And don’t startle anybody. Have they got arms with ’em, or are they in the wagons?”

“Oh, they’ve got their rifles. I’m not quite a fool,” said the captain.

“Glad to hear that,” the scout returned, and did not stop to explain whether he was rejoiced to hear that the men were properly armed, or that the captain was not an entire ignoramus!

It was too serious a situation for the man to take open offense, however. He, as well as the cook, did Cody’s bidding without further remark. They crept from tent to tent, keeping well in the shadow, while the first guard, warned by the cook, went across and warned the man pacing the beat by the river.

Buffalo Bill was pretty confident that the outlaws would wait until the sentinels were changed at midnight before attacking. That was the best time for such a movement, for the new guards would be sleepy, and the other men would have just settled into heavier sleep.

When the gang had been awakened the captain reported to the scout. Thus far none of the boys had come out of the three larger tents, and they were warned to keep under cover until they received the word.

“You don’t want to have your mules stampeded far,” said the scout. “When the sentinels are changed, let one of those coming off duty step out and lead in your bell-mare, and hobble her inside the line of the wagons. Then you’ll be sure of her, and, even if the long-ears do run away, they’ll come back again, come daybreak.”

The cook’s fire was already out, and Cody warned them to let the other one burn down as low as it would. The more shadowy the camp was the better the freighters could move about without attracting the notice of any watching outlaws.

Cody remained in the little tent with the flap pinned back, and the cook and the captain came to him and reported their missions accomplished. Midnight came--it was not a long wait--and the sentinels went to the tents and appeared to awaken those who were to relieve them. Cody had particularly instructed the man who was to go to the river-bank. One of the others brought in the gray mare. The camp settled down to apparent quietude and peace again.

“Now, boys, to your places,” whispered the scout to the cook and the captain. “Signal your men, captain; be ready to fling on the fire a heap of that light stuff yonder when you hear me hoot, cook! All right!”

The captain crept out once more and scratched with his finger-nail upon the canvas of each tent. At that the freighters began to wriggle out from under the canvas and crawl on their bellies to shelter beneath the wagons. Cody knew that the first fire of the outlaws would be aimed at the tents. Boyd Bennett and his villains would expect to thus kill or seriously wound several of the sleeping freighters and throw the others into utter confusion.

Buffalo Bill remained no longer in the small tent himself. He crept down to the river-bank, and he and the sentinel saw each other. Cody expected a part of the attacking party would approach in the way he had come to the camp, only from the other direction.

And this was a good guess. The outlaws--or several of them--dismounted and came along under the bank. In fact, so sure were they of catching the encampment asleep, that the scout heard their footsteps. They did not take proper care in disguising them.

“Now, mister!” Buffalo Bill exclaimed, under his breath to the sentinel near him.

Instantly this man dropped down in the grass, the other guard fell flat, there was a sudden pounding of horse’ hoofs down the ridge from the south and west. Then:

Bang! bang! bang!

A volley of rifle-shots tore through the tents inside the wagon-line. Instantly the shrill yell of Buffalo Bill, the Border King, answered the shots defiantly. The sound had often struck terror to the hearts of his red foes, and it was not unknown to Boyd Bennett and his comrades.

“That hell-cat, Cody, is here!” screamed Bennett.

The cook flung the light brush on the fire. It blazed up almost immediately, giving the men under the wagons a chance to see any of the outlaws that might venture into the camp. But none of them reached the inner circle. As those afoot sprang up the bank from the riverside, Cody and the man with him shot them down, or drove them shrieking with fear out of rifle-shot.

Pandemonium reigned for a few minutes, however. Although Boyd Bennett yelled his warning, the gang did not give over the fight so easily. They poured round after round of bullets into the camp; but at first they did not realize that they were being answered from beneath the wagons rather than from the tents.

Several of their ponies were shot down. Although the mules were stampeded for a ways, the ruffians could make no good use of this fact. Instead of catching the camp unawares, they were themselves ambushed, thanks to the Border King!

“Escape, men! We are undone!” shrieked Boyd Bennett, at last.

He had seen four of his men fall never to rise again, and two others had lost their mounts and had to spend precious moments in catching two of their dead comrades’ horses. Back the decimated party fled over the ridge.

The freighters poured in volley after volley upon the retreating outlaws. But the captain would not let them mount such horses and mules as they could catch and follow the crew. In this he got square with Buffalo Bill for the scout’s sharp words.

In the height of the fight, after seeing that the freight crew were more than a match for the outlaws, Buffalo Bill had slipped down under the river-bank and had run at his best pace toward the spot where the outlaws had been encamped earlier in the evening. There he had seen White Antelope tied to a sapling so that she could not escape while her captors tried their nefarious scheme of robbing and murdering the freight-train crew.

Believing that Bennett would leave nobody to guard the girl, the scout was bent upon reaching the place first and releasing her.

And this much he did accomplish: he reached the place first. But almost as soon as he had recognized Buffalo Bill’s yell, Boyd Bennett spurred back toward the bound girl. He feared the scout would do exactly the thing he was attempting. Knowing that Cody must have followed them here for the express purpose of saving White Antelope, he feared the shrewdness of his enemy.

Cody found the spot. A camp-fire burned low, but revealed the girl writhing in her bonds at one side. The scout bounded to her side just as the thunder of Bennett’s horse sounded down the hill.

“All right, White Antelope! ’Tis I--the Long Hair!” whispered the scout. “My horse is not far away. I will save you---- The devil!”

The scout broke off with a savage exclamation. He had hoped to slash through the girl’s bonds and carry her to his horse, which he had left in a thicket not far away. But for once in his life the scout had made a terrible oversight!

Chief had picked up a small pebble in his hoof late that afternoon, and Buffalo Bill had got down and pried it out with the point of his bowie. He had stuck the knife into a sheath which hung to his saddle-bow, and had forgotten it until this very instant. He had nothing with which to cut the girl’s bonds.

Already the chief of the bandits was almost upon him. Boyd Bennett rode down the hill yelling like a fiend.

“Fly!” murmured the girl. “They will kill you.”

“Curse it! I am foiled for the time. But, remember, White Antelope, I am near you and will release you yet, and serve your enemy as he deserves!”

With these words the scout dropped to all fours, and, as stealthily and silently as a wolf, crept away in the darkness.