CHAPTER XLIII. MAN TO MAN AT LAST.

Buffalo Bill knew the peril which threatened the two bandits and the girl quite as soon as they knew it themselves. But he was handicapped a bit now by his wound, which bled profusely. He had to wait to bind it up roughly, so that the blood would stop flowing, before he could pay much attention to the endangered trio in the canoe.

Ere then the craft was swiftly speeding down the river, going almost as fast as an ordinary horse could trot. Buffalo Bill whistled Chief to him, sprang into the saddle, and galloped down the trail. It was some minutes before he overtook the boat.

There was no danger then of anybody aboard it shooting at him. Boyd Bennett in the stern and his last comrade in the bow were having all they could handle in steering the craft. Rocks and snags began to crop up in the current, and they were now tossed this way, then that, while the foaming water boiled almost into the frail craft!

Buffalo Bill, intent on saving White Antelope’s life at any cost, unslung his lariat and made ready to cast the endangered men an end if the canoe came near enough to the shore. For the sake of assisting the girl he would have given up his vengeance on the outlaws.

However, when he cast the rope, although it fell across the boat, Boyd Bennett, with a scream of rage, threw it off.

“You madman!” yelled his companion, glancing over his shoulder.

“Mind your paddle!” roared Bennett.

“My God! I’ll take help from anybody,” cried the other.

Cody coiled his rope to swing it again, this time intending to aim ahead of the canoe so that the other man could catch it. But Bennett saw his intention, and he drew in his paddle, grabbed his pistol, and presented it at his comrade’s back. White Antelope was lying down in the canoe, knowing that this was the safest place for her.

“You touch that rope!” shrieked the bandit leader, as the lariat whistled through the air again, “and I’ll send you to Hades!”

The man glanced fearfully over his shoulder at the words, and saw the threatening pistol.

“Look out!” shouted Buffalo Bill, for his cast had been true, and the coil of the lasso was circling just over the man.

The fellow was too scared of the pistol to watch the loop, and it settled fairly over his head. With a shriek he tried then to get out of it, but it was too late. The canoe darted suddenly into a cross current, shooting off from the shore, and the rope was pulled taut.

Buffalo Bill could not have released the rope from his saddle-bow in time to save the unfortunate outlaw, nor could he force Chief nearer the water. The noose was about the man’s neck, and with an awful jerk the rope literally snatched him out of the canoe!

Had the girl not been lying down at the moment his body would have carried her likewise into the river. It was by mere chance that the canoe did not overturn; but it righted and sailed on with its freight of two. The other outlaw was dead before Buffalo Bill could drag him ashore. His neck had been broken.

The scout’s interest lay, however, in the fate of the two remaining in the canoe. He cast the dead man loose and spurred hard down the path, trying to keep up with the frail canoe now shooting the rapids.

It was a perilous journey; yet Boyd Bennett, ruffian though he was, exercised the greatest ingenuity in managing the canoe. The scout could not but admire this in the fellow.

It seemed impossible, however, that the canoe and its living freight could get through the rapids intact. The water boiled madly about the craft. It was flung hither and yon, and at times it was so racked by the opposing forces of the current that Buffalo Bill, on the bank, could hear the wood crack.

Boyd Bennett’s glaring eyes did not turn toward his enemy throughout all this trial. He watched each black-ribbed rock or floating snag against which his craft might be hurled. Nor did he speak a word to the girl lying in the bottom of the canoe.

She knew as well as he that any movement on her part would add to their danger, and, although she might now leap overboard--she was free--it would mean certain death. So freedom tantalized her. She could only escape at the peril of her life!

She saw Boyd Bennett’s glowing eyes occasionally cast upon her a basilisklike glance. There was madness in them, she knew. The brave girl, used as she was to battle and the chase, shrank from this terrible foe. And she was helpless!

The canoe swung around rocks, which she thought surely they must hit; it just escaped collision with logs and drift-stuff in the most marvelous manner, and all the time Boyd Bennett sat holding the paddle as a steering-oar, his black eyes glaring out of his death’s-head face, impassive, yet all alive to the dangers of the run.

Spray broke over the side of the canoe and drenched the girl. The craft seemed to fairly throb and jump with the motion of the water.

Once an eddy seized them. Despite all Bennett could do the canoe shot into this whirlpool, and they made several rapid revolutions before the man saw his way out, and thrust the canoe between two ragged jaws of rock, and so escaped!

On and on fled the boat, while Buffalo Bill urged his mount along the river path. He could barely keep up with it. Each moment he expected to see it overturned, and both passengers tumbled into the raging current.

At last the more quiet river below the rapids came into view. Here the stream widened and the current quickly became sluggish. In the midst of the stream was a wooded island, its sharp upper end, consisting of an outcropping ledge, dividing the river into two channels just at the foot of the white water.

The canoe, as it shot out of the smother of spray, chanced to take the channel nearest to the bank on which Cody urged his horse. This was an oversight on Bennett’s part, but he had been too anxious to get out of the rapids at all to attend to where the canoe finally went.

Cody saw his chance, and, although Chief was well winded now, he yelled with delight. He saw what appeared to be the finish of the race--and in his favor.

“I’ve got you now, Boyd Bennett!” he shouted.

The bandit at last turned his eyes upon him, and then glanced around. He saw Cody’s meaning. The canoe was drifting so near the scout that the latter could either shoot, or rope him. And the long island forbade his getting away.

But the villain was not yet to his last card. His mind was keenly alive to the situation, and he lost no points in the game.

“Not yet, Bill Cody--not yet!” he shrieked, and with a single thrust of his paddle, turned the canoe’s nose toward the island.

“Hold, or I fire!” cried the scout, raising his weapon and drawing bead upon the bandit.

Boyd Bennett drove the canoe into the rocky ledge which masked the end of the island. Like paper the frail craft tore apart, and both he and the girl were flung into the stream.

Buffalo Bill’s bullet flew wide of its mark that time! White Antelope was in as much danger as the bandit--perhaps more--for the scout did not know whether the girl could swim or not, and the current was still quite swift and the water deep.

But White Antelope soon showed what she could do in the river. Cold as the water was, the instant she came to the surface and saw Boyd Bennett’s arms stretched out for her, she threw herself backward and dove again to the bottom of the river! With a yell the bandit flung himself after her, and again just missed the scout’s bullet. The scoundrel seemed to bear a charmed life. Buffalo Bill was unable to hit him. Although they were man to man at last, it was a question still who would come out winner in the game.