CHAPTER XII.

IN THE HANDS OF THE REDSKINS.

"Well, I guess that will be about all--that settles the career of the world's greatest bandit," averred the Captain.

Both officers and men stood on the brink of the black chasm, gazing down fearsomely into the apparently bottomless pit. The thought of the fearful plunge that they had just witnessed, had a sobering effect on all of them. It had stirred within the men an emotion almost akin to fear, and each trooper as he turned away, felt a little chill trickle up and down his spinal column, all in spite of his stern effort to repress it. Hated as was the great outlaw, the soldiers rated him as a brave man, a quality that touches a responsive chord in every soldier's breast.

The Captain broke the silence, his words falling on them almost like a blow.

"No living man could come out of that fall alive," he continued. "It is a sheer drop of more than two hundred feet to the bottom of the gulch, and there isn't a ghost of a show for anything human or inhuman that goes over it.

"Lieutenant, take a squad of men and ride north until you strike the entrance to the gorge. The water is low at this time of the year and you can easily get up to the point where the bandit and the pinto struck. This time there won't be any question about it. He won't look very pretty, but we've got to get him to the fort as soon as possible, for the weather is warm."

"Right, sir; but I should like to know how he played that scurvy trick on us?" demanded the Lieutenant. "I can't get it through my head how our men ever missed him."

"That is elemental. He lay down before the volley was fired!"

"That's all right, Captain, but I still don't understand how he knew we were going to shoot," persisted the Lieutenant.

"Because he was Jesse James. That's the only answer I can give you. I made my mistake when I failed to order a volley fired into him after he was down. That's the trouble when troops are opposed to savages and outlaws. We fight according to the rules of civilized warfare while they--well, they are just common murderers. Warfare to them is only assassination.

"Have the recall sounded, then start for the gulch. Jesse James is dead for the last time."

But once more the army officer had been tricked.

In a pure game of wits, he with all his military training and his experience in fighting savages, had been outwitted. When it came to pitting one man in a battle of wits against another, Jesse James had no known peer. He never seemed to come to the end of his resources, and the most desperate situations, the moments of the gravest peril, gave him not the slightest apprehension as to the ultimate outcome. He was able to cope with them all, come when and how they might.

As he lay, back down, on the rocks, after the first volley had been fired by the troops, the great desperado formed his plans concisely and definitely, and these plans, as it proved, he followed without the slightest deviation.

Jesse had heard the command of the Captain to prepare a litter and it brought a sardonic grin to his hardy face.

"They sure will need that litter themselves before I get through with them," he muttered.

The outlaw reasoned with marvelous precision, just what the soldiers would do, and, therefore, his quickly laid plans worked out without the slightest slip or miscarriage.

The great oak tree on the brink of the precipice proved Jesse's salvation, as he proposed that it should. Had it not been there, another and different ending to his escapade, might have resulted.

But the officers did not attach any special significance to the fact that the outlaw had driven his pony straight for the tree in his mad flight from them, seeing only in the act a desire to put an end to himself rather than fall into the hands of the United States Government. Still the tree was the key note to the situation--the one factor that enabled him to elude his pursuers, and at the same time save himself from being dashed to certain death on the rocks two hundred feet below.

As his pony shot into the shadow, Jesse raised himself in his stirrups and caught a low-lying limb. With the agility of a trapeeze performer he drew his body up and free of the horse just at the instant when the bullets of the troops sang by beneath him and the screaming pinto went dashing to its death.

Like a squirrel, Jesse ran up the trunk of the tree, and there he perched, his body convulsed with fiendish glee at the neat trick he had turned on the cavalry troop for the second time that night. And it was with intense interest that he listened to the comments of the officers down below.

"So, Jesse James is dead, eh?" he chuckled.

Yet at that moment the supposed dead man held with steady hand, a heavy "Colt," trained on the redoubtable captain. The officer was nearer to death than he ever knew, and Jesse himself, was not so far from it as he thought.

It was a relief, however, that he noted the final departure of the troops. Jesse was anxious to get back to the cave. He wondered that none of the band had been out in search of him. This augured trouble of some sort. And he wondered too, how successful Dew Drop had been in corralling Great Bear's medicine man, for he felt that the need of the herb doctor's services, was urgent. Perhaps that was where the rub lay--perhaps his whole outfit had been picked up by the redskins.

It suddenly occurred to the desperado too, that no redskin had shown himself during the melee. Certainly they had not been so deaf as not to have heard the bombardment of the cavalrymen.

"There's sure something doing," he muttered. "Things look kinder ticklish."

Jesse decided that it would be wise to get away while the coast was clear. The troops were now well out of the way.

But his cogitations were rudely interrupted by a guttural grunt at the foot of the tree.

Jesse started.

He recognized the sound. No other than a redskin could give vent to an exclamation like that.

The desperado's gun came out in a flash. He peered down through the foliage, dimly making out the figure of a savage. Perhaps the Indian was alone, but more than likely there were others nearby.

The outlaw, adopting the policy of the savages, waited patiently for further developments. But all hope of the redskin not being aware of his presence in the tree, was shattered a moment later.

"Ugh," said the Indian.

"Great snakes," muttered Jesse.

"Jesse James, um up tree," announced the Indian stoically.

"That I am for certain," growled the great bandit chieftain, under his breath.

"Jesse James um in a fix."

"Great Bear, as I'm alive," whispered Jesse, slipping down the tree trunk a few feet.

"Pale face um fool sojers. Um no fool Great Bear. Great Bear um see many things. Um see sojers shoot Jess Jame. Great Bear know um not shoot Jess Jame. Jess Jame he play possum. Ugh. Great Bear um wait. Um want pale face for umself. Huh."

"Well, you've got another guess coming," retorted the outlaw.

Jesse began parleying to gain time. He first wanted to know if the chief was alone, which fact was all-important to him in his present predicament.

"Great Bear go away," he called down gently. "Great Spirit up here in tree," he crooned with subtle cunning.

"No, no!" protested the chief, "Great Spirit not for pale face. Great Spirit stay Indian."

The great desperado fingered his guns nervously. It required all the self control he could impose upon himself to refrain from shooting the redskin, where he stood in plain view of the man up the tree. It was a terrible temptation, but the bandit-chieftain resented it manfully.

"All right, old moccasin foot, we'll see about that later!"

Great Bear, he realized had been a witness to his brush with the cavalry troops; but with a cunning characteristic of the savage that he was, had viewed it with keener eyes than had the officers of the troop.

"Um Jess Jame come down," grunted the chief.

"Jesse James will come down when he gets good and ready, you greasy old cutthroat," he jeered. "Great Bear had better look out or my men will shoot him in the back. Do you think I'd let you stand there making threats at me all this time without killing you, if I hadn't known my men had you covered. You are not half so smart as you think you are, eh?"

The old chief did not change his position in the least.

But meanwhile Jesse was cautiously making his way down the trunk of the tree, yet in doing so not so much as displacing the smallest particle of dry bark whose falling would warn the savage of his approach.

"Ugh," grunted the chief.

"Ugh it yourself," threw back the desperado.

"Um lie. Great Bear um know Jess Jame. No paleface get Great Bear. Paleface all gone. Indians here--Great Spirit here. Indian in bush--many Indian in bush there," indicating a half circle by a sweep of his hand.

"Ah," exclaimed the desperado.

Jesse had drawn from the big chief the very information he was seeking. He knew now that the savage was alone. "When an Indian tells you a thing is so, you know it isn't," was Jesse's motto and it was the one he applied to the present case.

Still, he dared not use his guns.

Great Bear, perhaps, following the same process of reasoning, stood confidently awaiting the moment when the desperado should find it convenient to move.

"Pale face no jump. Um fall down big hole like pinto," he warned.

"Don't worry, my sweet papoose," jeered the outlaw. "Jesse James don't jump down holes, nor does he run away. But he's going to kill an Indian bye and bye, when he gets down. But paleface going to stay up here till Big chief gets sore feet waiting for him. Good night, you old dog-eater."

The great desperado laughed and chuckled, all with a purpose, but not so loudly at any time that his voice could easily be heard beyond the circle of shadow thrown by the great tree.

"Ugh. Pale face, dog--" retorted the savage.

But he got no further.

Like a flying projectile, a dark object was hurled from the tree. Straight did it speed at the copper-hued savage below, and as true as if it had been from a mountain battery.

The projectile was none other, however, than the great desperado himself. With rare cunning, Jesse had step by step, drawn the chief's attention from his real purpose, the while occupying the time in getting into the most advantageous position for the carrying out of his plans.

The outlaw's flying body with unerring aim, hit the savage fair and square and both men went down in a heap.

Great Bear uttered a grunt of terrible rage, but could not speak. The terrific impact of Jesse's heavy body striking him, knocked all the wind out of his savage body.

But the Indian's arms suddenly closed over the desperado in a crushing grip. Jesse, tough and muscular as he was, felt that his ribs were being slowly, but relentlessly crushed in.

Neither man spoke a word at first, each playing for an advantage that would enable him to reach his knife.

One of Jesse's bowies that he held in his teeth, when he jumped, was lost at the moment his body struck that of Great Bear.

The desperado now discovered that his antagonist was working slowly toward the precipice. But whether he thought to frighten the outlaw or whatever his motive, Jesse checkmated it.

"S-s-o--that's y-o-u-r g-g-a-m-e is it?" he gritted, "you black hearted savage. All right, if you want to go over, come on."

Great Bear changed his mind instantly.

"Jess Jame um brave man. But Injun kill um," he hissed between breaths.

Over and over the combatants rolled, first one gaining a slight advantage which would be quickly lost to the other. Great Bear on his side possessed one advantage that Jesse did not--he was stripped to the waist while the outlaw was fully clothed. This gave the Indian something to hold to, while Jesse's grip on the perspiring skin of his antagonist was an uncertain thing.

But the bandit king was working his hands upward as frequently and as rapidly as he dared. Once when he had succeeded in forcing Great Bear to his side, with the left hand pinioned under him, Jesse's right shot up and his fingers closed over the savage's right ear. With a grunt of rage Jesse's hand came away covered with blood.

The hand held the ear of his savage antagonist. But the stoical Indian gave no sign that he had been injured. If anything the terrible wound gave him added strength.

A sudden upward expansion of his muscles, chest and abdomen, fairly lifted Jesse into the air.

When the two came down, Jesse was underneath. In a moment more their positions were reversed.

Great Bear's fingers closed over the outlaw's throat, while the desperado's knee forced itself into his adversary's abdomen with terrible force.

The Indian emitted a grunt, which was followed by another as the desperate outlaw bored in and in with the bony knee until it seemed as if the flesh of the other's body must give way and let the knee find an easy path.

The Indian's grasp slackened and Jesse's terrible fist smote him squarely in the face until the blood of the savage spurted into his own eyes.

Again and again the outlaw rained sledge hammer blows on his opponent's face until it was reduced to a bloody pulp. But still the desperate battle waged.

Now and then both men would lay still for a moment, clasped in a desperate embrace, gasping for breath, but speaking no word.

The time for vituperation had passed.

It was now a battle to the death.

They were wonderfully matched. And though Jesse's hands and face were smeared with red blood that showed ghastly in the moonlight, he had sustained no wounds.

In a moment of relaxation he jabbed a thumb with all his force into the savage's eye.

The pain must have been excruciating. But the redskin gave no sign that he sensed its pain.

Great Bear had succeeded in unsheathing his knife, but his hand instantly was pinioned to the ground where the great outlaw held it in a vice-like grip.

All at once Jesse released his hold on the knife hand. The hand with lightning-like quickness shot up to make the fatal thrust.

It got no further.

With a movement equally quick, the desperado caught the hand and with an unexpected movement bent it backward.

"Snap!"

Great Bear cried out, and the hand hung limp.

"Ha, ha! Reached you, did I?" gasped Jesse in triumphant tones.

Great Bear snarled like a wounded animal.

The hand though useless, slipped about the outlaw's neck and the savage's arm pinioned it in a grip of iron, while with his free hand he showered blows on the bandit's side.

Jesse fastened his teeth in the redskin's cheek and when he pulled away there was left a great gaping wound, and the bandit spat out his toll of human flesh.

The Indian's grip on Jesse's neck was released and Great Bear with his free hand dealt his antagonist a frightful blow on the side of his head.

Jesse sunk down and all grew black about him.

With a muffled yell of fiendish joy Great Bear sprang free of his antagonist, throwing Jesse with crushing force to the ground where he lay for a brief moment on his back.

The redskin scrambled for his knife.

It was but the work of an instant for him to secure it.

He made a mighty leap for his desperate, fallen antagonist, his face contorted with the awful passion that was raging within him.

But the brief respite had given Jesse's wonderful recuperative powers, time to act. Yet he lay perfectly still calmly awaiting the onslaught.

The Indian sprang clear of the ground, projecting his body at his fallen antagonist and with gleaming knife held aloft for the fatal blow, was descending upon him with crushing force.

In his rage he did not pause to think or to consider. The lust for human blood overcame all other emotions and blinded the savage's judgment.

The outlaw's eyes were upon him, but this, Great Bear did not know, nor would he have heeded had he seen.

Quicker than the human eye could follow, the desperado's knees doubled up, his legs were drawn back.

The feet shot out with terrific force, catching the savage redskin full in the abdomen.

Great Bear doubled up like a jack knife and catapulted in the air, turning a complete somersault, ending up by landing on his head on the hard rocks some distance away.

The Indian toppled over and lay still.

It was now Jesse's moment to act.

He too sprang into the air.

His heavy boots landed full on the Indian's face, mangling and mutilating it almost beyond human semblance.

But the uncertain footing threw the outlaw from his feet and he fell sprawling over the body of his antagonist.

In an instant he had whirled over.

Again the combatants were locked in a deadly embrace.

It seemed as if human flesh and blood could not stand the terrible gruelling that each desperate man had sustained.

Still the battle waged on as sanguinary as before.

Never had such a desperate fight to the death been known in all that wild, barbarous country, and the story of it has been handed down--told in tepee and at firesides to this day. You can hear it any day should you chance to come across some old trapper or Indian chief when either is in a communicative mood.

But neither man of iron could conquer the other.

Jesse while holding his antagonist down, had pinioned both arms to the ground and with hands in the redskin's hair, was beating his head against the rocks, with an impact that might have been heard for many rods around.

He hoped to wear out his antagonist in this way. Both men's knives had now been lost beyond recovery, and nothing but pure muscular prowess could decide the equal battle.

All at once Jesse sensed that some one was approaching him from the rear, but whether friend or foe, he could not tell, for all behind him was in a deep shadow now.

His guns were still in their holsters, but the sudden strain that the desperado put upon himself to draw them, was futile. The Indian's grasp of iron could not be broken for the infinitesimal space of time that was necessary to give Jesse an opportunity to jerk his "Colts" from their resting place.

With a mighty effort he twisted his antagonist about so that he could partially look behind him.

The discovery that he made was enough to shake the stoutest nerves.

Over him towered the savage, malignant face of a giant Indian.

He held in his hands a club which was descending on Jesse's head with fearful force.

Like a flash the outlaw dodged and the blow fell upon Great Bear's arm, crushing it, and bringing from the warrior a groan of agony.

Jesse sought to free himself from the killing embrace.

He was a second too late.

Again the mighty club was swung on high.

It landed fair on the bandit's head.

The world's greatest desperado toppled over the form of his antagonist, with a subdued moan.

Jesse did not move.