CHAPTER X.

SHOT BY HIS OWN RIFLE.

“Tom Kyle, I say you’ve got Tecumseh!”

The reiteration of the trapper’s declaration followed a minute’s silence.

“Well, what if I have?” hoarsely grated the White Pawnee.

“I want ’im.”

“You do?”

“Certainly; get off!”

Tom Kyle gritted his teeth till they fairly cracked. Then he lowered half unconscious Lina Aiken to the ground, but remained on the iron-gray.

“There’s the girl!” he said.

“But I want the horse. Tecumseh is worth more to me than all the girls in America.”

“What will you do with me? Shackelford, I have saved your life.”

“And you would have saved it night before last if your devils had caught me, too,” was the sarcastic rejoinder. “But to business; get off that horse.”

Shackelford’s voice was as stern as a winter storm, and the renegade saw his head drop once more to the rifle-stock.

“I mean business, Tom Kyle. We can’t wait here. If you will be stubborn--”

The fugitive from Indian vengeance interrupted the hunter by springing to the ground.

Frontier Shack now rode slowly forward, the remaining horsemen following his example.

“I pulled wool over the Pawnees’ eyes this time, Tom,” he said, familiarly, and with a broad smile. “The water tells me that I make a handsome Indian. You see I can play the Crow pretty decently, for I’ve trapped with the varmints but I never caught enough of their lingo to gabble it off to advantage. Wonder what them Pawnees ’ud say if they could hear Sleeping Bear talking like any other folks?”

He paused, and Tom Kyle saw fit to put a question.

“How did you know I was escaping?”

“I’ll tell ye. I first put an end to the two greasers what guarded the boys, hyar, an’ then I sneaked around for the girl, fur one o’ these chaps wouldn’t budge a peg ’thout her. I found her nest empty, an’ I knew that you had a hand in the pie. I knew that you would take my horse, because you’ve wanted him for these several years. I daren’t go back to the corral, for I thought I would run ag’in’ you, and there’d hev been a game blocked. We caught Pawnee horses on the prairie, and struck out for the Platte.”

“But how did you know that I would ride southward?”

“I knew your situation, Tom Kyle. The Pawnees hev told me about the volcano that they were manufacturin’ beneath your feet, and I knew that you had good inducements to join the Apaches. So we came here and waited. This is the old Apache trail. You war a fool for takin’ it to-night.”

“I know it,” said the renegade; “but what can’t be cured must be endured, I suppose.”

“It seems so; but we must be movin’. Allow me to tie your hands.”

The Pale Pawnee submitted to the operation with muttered curses.

Then he was placed upon the horse, which the trapper had ridden from the Pawnee village, and his legs were lashed to the sinewy girth.

“Where are you going?” he asked, as Frontier Shack vaulted upon the back of his favorite steed once more.

“To Fort Kearney.”

A pallor flitted across the renegade’s face.

He did not want to go the frontier station.

“Shackelford, this is the lowest kind of revenge.”

The trapper smiled.

“I can’t take vengeance for the Government,” he said. “Tom Kyle, I’m going to turn you over to the authorities, and I hope that they will deal justly with one who has massacred so many helpless emigrants.”

“Well, do as you like, but let me tell you now, Otis Shackelford, that, should I escape, I will take your life if I am obliged to hunt you a lifetime.”

Another smile curled the hunter’s lips, and then the ride over the prairies continued in silence.

Fort Kearney, at that time, was a weak frontier post; but it awed the savage in its vicinity, and kept him classed among the comparatively harmless denizens of the West. The cannon had a terror for him, and, as yet, he had not learned to laugh at the blue-coated soldiery, who stood between him and the great father at Washington.

The western post, in question, was situated about sixty miles from the point where Frontier Shack arrested the flight of the Pale Pawnee, with his prize--the Gold Girl.

Shackelford took a trail not much frequented by Indians, but noted for being crossed and trodden by buffaloes.

The quartette rode rapidly beneath the stars, which dotted the azure vault, and wore a senescent aspect, which the trapper noted with a half frown.

He almost wished that the night might be interminable.

At last day broke upon the vast prairie, and found the fugitives still many miles from Fort Kearney.

Objects assumed shape gradually, and the first one to speak was Lina Aiken, who sat before the trapper on his old steed.

“We must hurry,” she said, her eyes riveted upon a dark mass which seemed to rest against the eastern horizon. “A storm will burst upon us soon.”

“A storm, girl? Why, where’s the clouds?”

“Yonder.”

“That’s buffalo.”

Lina uttered an exclamation of wonder.

Presently the thunder of hoofs was heard, and the army of buffaloes advanced directly toward the Platte, almost within sight of whose waters our fugitives were.

The herd contained thousands, and the noise of their feet as they rushed over the plain almost drowned the voice of the spectators.

“They’re makin’ for water,” remarked Shackelford. “There’s a place hyarabouts where the river’s cl’ar of quicksands, and them knowing beasts hev discovered it. It is further down river, though, so we’ll sit hyar till they pass in our front. Now, boys, look out for white bufflers! If thar’s any in this world, ye’ll see ’em in that herd.”

A crimson flush stole to the cheeks of the young adventurers, and they exchanged smiles without glancing at the trapper.

Suddenly the line lengthened, and excitement faded from the young Ohioan’s eyes.

They turned to the trapper.

“We’re in danger!”

Frontier Shack did not reply, but watched the animals whose extended ranks endangered their lives to an imminent degree.

“We stand between them and the water,” said Tom Kyle, coolly, and with infinite pleasure, despite his situation. “They are coming like lightning, and they could catch us before we could reach the river.”

“I know it,” replied the hunter; “but we must not die here.”

“We can’t fire the prairie, although the wind is in our favor.”

“No; the grass is green now.”

“Then what will we do?”

It was Lina Aiken’s question.

“I can save the party. I could show you the Pawnees’ plan for baffling buffalo.”

“We can ride through the ranks.”

“You can not, Shackelford: those ranks must be three hundred deep. Through the ranks of a common herd we might ride to safety; but not through those ranks.”

The hunter reseated himself in the saddle, after surveying the bisonic legion, that rushed forward, completely infilading them, crazed for water to cool their tongues.

Such a horde threatened to drain the Platte.

“That’s so, Tom; we can’t ride through them. If they war wild horses we’d fix them, but--heavens! what thunder!”

“We’ve got to die when we can be saved,” grated the renegade.

“No! there!”

Tom Kyle stretched his limbs, and uttered a low ejaculation when he found himself free.

“Now show us the Pawnee plan.”

“I will, God helping me,” said the renegade, with determination. “Your rifle.”

Frontier Shack did not hesitate, but tossed Tom Kyle his rifle.

With a “Now,” which sounded terribly triumphant at that perilous hour, the fugitive king rose in his stirrups and surveyed the approaching herd, whose glaring eyes and long red tongues were now distinctly visible.

What would the renegade do?

The spectators held their breath and fastened their eyes on him.

He seemed to be looking for a break in the dark-brown ranks.

Suddenly his eyes lit up with a strange, fierce fire, and Frontier Shack, who also had risen in his stirrups with a revolver clutched in either hand, saw what had rejoiced the renegade.

The buffaloes had extended their ranks until the files were not dangerously deep, and two huge bulls, who were fighting most furiously, promised to divide the herd.

“Now, Tom--”

The trapper suddenly paused, for the renegade had wheeled in his stirrups, with an oath.

“This is the Pawnees’ plan!” he hissed.

There was the report of a rifle; the revolvers fell from Shackelford’s hands, and he dropped on Tecumseh’s neck without a sigh--without a groan!

A cry of horror burst from the lips of the spectators of this brutal deed, and Lina Aiken found herself dragged from beneath the body of her preserver by a hand that griped her like the jaws of a vise.

With the girl in his arms, the renegade wheeled toward the buffaloes. He rose in his stirrups again, as he executed the movement, and a moment later he was standing on the saddle with the ease of a circus-rider.

One arm supported Lina Aiken and the trapper’s rifle, while the other held his magnificent serape aloft, and flaunted it in the faces of the thirsty herd.

Straight at the quadrupedal ranks the Pawnee “buck-skin” darted, and the renegade accompanied the waving of his serape with yells that might have frightened the fiends in Pandemonium.

The young adventurers’ eyes looked over white cheeks, and George Long’s first intention was to cock his rifle.

“Don’t shoot!” cried his companion, putting forth his hand. “Our safety lies in following him. If he rides through the ranks, why can not we?”

The hammer fell gently on the percussion-cap.

“Forward!”

With a glance at Frontier Shack, whose hands griped Tecumseh’s mane with the tenacity of death, the two boys shot forward in the wake of the renegade.

Their safety did lie in following Tom Kyle, who uttered a light laugh when he glanced over his shoulder and saw them giving their Pawnee horses spur and rein.

The two heroes imitated the flying king as nearly as possible.

They stripped themselves to their jackets, and rising in the stirrups, they waved their garments at the bisons.

For many moments it seemed that they were riding to a terrible death beneath short horns and stony feet; but all at once, that dreadful thought gave place to a wild cry of safety.

The renegade rode almost directly toward the rising sun, and the rich gold trimmings of his Spanish cloak dazzled the eyes of the beasts; and at length the brownish ranks divided.

A yell of triumph pealed from Tom Kyle’s lips, and a minute later he passed the jaws of death! The young buffalo-hunters followed him, and at their side dashed the iron-gray, as eager to bear his motionless master through the dark ranks as horse well could be.

The renegade’s steed was no mean racer. He distanced the other horses, and when the buffaloes had been baffled, he was almost beyond rifle-range.

He shouted something back which the young Ohioans could not catch, and then they saw him drop into the saddle again and turn his horse’s head in a south-westerly direction.

“We can’t overtake him, George,” said Charley Shafer. “We must stop here.”

They curbed their mustangs with little difficulty, for the beasts were jaded, and a quick “’Ho!” brought Tecumseh to a sudden halt.

“I wonder if he’s dead,” said young Shafer, riding up to the trapper, while his comrade gazed, with gritted teeth and clenched hands, at the villain who bore from him, with terrible rapidity, the beautiful being whom his young heart had learned to love.

Frontier Shack still lay motionless on the iron-gray’s back, and the horse turned his head with a softened look as the youth put forth his hand.

Tecumseh’s neck was crimsoned with blood; but the boy raised the trapper’s head with flutterings of hope.

That head seemed a lump of lead; but as Charley lifted it high from the blood-clotted mane, the expressionless eyeballs seemed to move. He looked again, this time with an exclamation of joy!

The dark eyes moved again, and the hands released the horse’s mane.

“George! George!” cried the overjoyed boy, “he lives! he lives!”

Called from the contemplation of the dark speck oscillating against the distant horizon, George Long bounded forward.

“Where’s the bufflers?”

“At the river.”

“Where’s that devil?”

“Out of sight now,” said George, with a sigh.

Frontier Shack was silent for a moment.

“He’s showed me the Pawnee mode of beating bufflers,” he said, at length, with a smile which, on his bloody face, looked ludicrous in the extreme; “but if I don’t show him Frontier Shack’s mode of beating renegades, then may the wolves howl over my grave when the grass dies ag’in! Are ye ready, boys?”

“Yes.”

“Then we move.”

“To Fort Kearney?” asked George, who saw that the trapper possessed no weapons.

“I don’t see Fort Kearney nor the Stars and Stripes till I wipe out that cussed pale whelp.”

“And save Lina?”

“Yes.”

“And Mabel?”

“Yes!”

The boys grasped the trapper’s hands.

“Boys, look hyar,” said Frontier Shack, solemnly, “you’ve got fathers and mothers; I haven’t. I had parents once, but they’re up yonder. I kin do what I’m going to do alone. I might get along better without you; I really think I could. Now suppose I guide you to Fort Kearney, and that you wait till I bring the girls back. I’ll do it, so help me Heaven! I want yer parents to see ye once more, and I tell ye truly that yonder, across that river, lies the valley of death, and yonder,” pointing toward the land of the Sioux, “the highlands of destruction.”

“Sir, dangers can not frighten us,” said Charley Shafer, breaking the profound silence that followed the trapper’s last words. “We are going with you, for we have determined to rescue our friends from the red-skins or die in the attempt. You can not guide us to Fort Kearney; there!”

The old trapper slowly shook his head, and muttered in a low tone:

“If white bufflers hed a-kept out o’ yer heads! Si Gregg hed no business to write sech a lie!”

He loved the boys.