Читать книгу Buffalo Bill, the Border King; Or, Redskin and Cowboy - Ingraham Prentiss - Страница 12

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The Border King, after leaving Texas Jack in the cañon, did not spare the white horse he rode, for he was riding to save many human lives.

He had known this horse when he was the favorite steed of Colonel Nelson A. Miles, and the scout well knew the endurance of which the horse was capable.

The creature had been captured by Oak Heart, the king of the Utah Sioux, in an attack on a military camp, and Colonel Miles had told Cody to try and get him back from his Indian master.

“I hate to think of the old fellow being handled by that red scamp. Get him back, Cody, and he’s yours,” the colonel had told the scout.

And now Buffalo Bill had the long-barreled, strong-limbed racer under him, and he was proving himself as fleet as a deer and as tireless as a hound.

“The colonel used to call you Runaway, I remember,” said the scout, talking aloud to the handsome creature, and patting the side of his neck with a tender hand, “and what Oak Heart christened you I don’t know, but I shall call you after your redskin master, and it shall be Chief.”

The horse snorted and tossed his head as though he understood what was being said to him, and hour after hour, mile after mile, he kept up his steady lope—that long, free canter that takes the Western range horse over so long a trail in so short a time.

Darkness fell soon after Cody rode away from Texas Jack. He hoped to reached the military post for which he aimed before midnight. And he was not mistaken. The new day had not commenced when the scout on his white charger thundered up to the gates of Fort Resistence.

“Halt! Who comes here?” rang out the sentinel’s challenge.

“All right, pard! This is Scout Cody with an urgent message for the commander. Let me in!”

“By thunder! Is it really you, Buffalo Bill?” cried the sentinel over the gate.

“What’s left of me after about the hardest day’s work of my life.”

“Injuns?”

“And a-plenty of them. Hurry up, old man! This is no place for gossip,” urged the scout.

“Wait till I call the corporal,” exclaimed the curious sentinel. Then:

“Corporal of the guard! Corporal of the guard! Rouse up, corporal! There’s somebody at the gate!”

Half the garrison was aroused by the shouting. The corporal came on the run, saw who it was without, and let the scout and his dripping horse within.

“Injuns, sure, Cody?” asked those who were awake.

“Fort Advance has been surrounded for three days by a thousand red devils under Oak Heart!” exclaimed Cody to the officer on duty. “I must see Colonel Royal at once.”

The commander of the fort had gotten out of bed already, and he received the scout in his nightshirt.

“Is this true, Cody?” he cried. “Is Major Baldwin threatened?”

“Why, sir, your scouts must have been hived up for a week past if they haven’t seen Injun signs,” said Cody earnestly. “For three days the Sioux have held the garrison of Fort Advance prisoners, and five men have been killed trying to get to you. They’re pretty nearly out of ammunition.”

“My God, Cody! You astonish me. I’ve had the scouts working through the country on the other side, trusting to hear from you if anything went wrong in the direction of Advance.”

“I’ve been to Denver, sir. Just got back to-day. I managed to run in half a packload of ammunition that I had cached, and then Texas Jack and I got through the lines again late this afternoon and—here I am!”

“Texas Jack! He’s not killed, I hope?”

“I don’t know. The reckless fellow would try to go back to cheer the fort with the news that I had got away safely.”

“That’s enough now, Bill. You’ll get something to eat, and if you are going back with the men I send——”

“You bet I am. I got a fellow to rub Chief down, and he’ll be good for it.”

“Your horse? Well, I’m off to see things prepared.”

The energetic commander at once ordered his adjutant to call out two troops of cavalry, mount two companies of infantry, and, with a couple of light guns, to start to the reenforcement of Fort Advance. Extra supplies and ammunition were to be taken in ambulances.

Captain Alfred Taylor, of the Fifth Cavalry, was given command of the expedition, and ordered to start within the hour. They tried to get Cody to take some rest, for more than twenty-four hours the scout had been active, most of the time in the saddle, and part of the time fighting for his very life, but he was determined to go back with the party of reenforcements.

When it pulled out from Post Resistence Buffalo Bill rode ahead as guide, while half a dozen of Colonel Royal’s scouts went along to guard the flanks, and to clear out the cañon when they came to it. Cody felt that Oak Heart, knowing that the white men had got through his lines and were probably making for Resistence, might send a part of his force forward to meet any rescue party coming to the aid of the garrison of Fort Advance.

And the wise scout had not been mistaken in this. Perhaps one reason why Texas Jack had succeeded so easily in returning to Fort Advance was because the king of the Sioux had drawn off quite three hundred of his braves for special duty, and sent them along the track toward Fort Resistence.

The easiest and shortest trail between the two forts was through the cañon, and this Oak Heart well knew. He ordered the chiefs in charge of the three hundred to ambush the rescue-party near the entrance to the cañon at the other end, and not long before Cody and the other scouts, riding ahead of Captain Taylor’s command, came within shouting distance of the cañon the bloodthirsty savages were hidden among the rocks and trees on the sloping sides, ready to pour a deadly fire into the band of rescuers when they came along the trail beneath them.

While yet the scouts were some distance from the cañon something startled them ahead. Tearing along the trail toward them came a herd of deer, frightened from their night’s lair by something untoward.

“Now, what under the canopy started them to running?” asked Cody, who never let anything go past him unexplained.

“Wolves, it’s likely,” said one of the Resistence scouts named Judd.

“Haven’t heard a wolf howl to-night,” declared Buffalo Bill.

“You’re right there, pard,” said another scout, Barney by name.

“And there was no critter on the trail of those white-tails,” said a third man.

“That means Injuns, then,” declared Barney.

“I reckon you’re right, boys,” said the Border King. “Let’s see. Those deer came directly from the cañon.”

“You bet they did.”

“Something doing there, then, boys.”

“I reckon you’re right, Buffler.”

“Here, Barney, you ride back and tell Captain Taylor to halt his column. Judd, you and I leave our horses here and go ahead to reconnoiter. Savvy?”

“Sure!”

Barney rode back. Judd and Buffalo Bill discarded their mounts and went ahead afoot.

Oak Heart was a born general, and, like old Colorow, of the Utes, displayed abilities in planning his campaigns that placed him head and shoulders above the average redskin chieftain. There have been few great warriors among the red Indians. Red Jacket, Black Eagle, Tecumseh, Colorow, and a few others have possessed unnatural characteristics for redskins, and that is why they left their mark on Indian history.

And Oak Heart had sufficient control over his warriors to make them do something which above all things a redskin hates. He made them fight at night!

Now, the Indian is a spiritualist of the most pronounced breed. By day the spirits of the dead, and those powerful beings which he believes control men’s affairs, sleep; by night these supernatural beings walk abroad, and no Southern darky is more afraid of seeing a ghost than a redskin. The medicine chiefs, who are, most of them, a set of unconscionable fakers, foster this belief in ghosts and evil spirits and so prey on the tribes.

Indians often select the hour just before dawn to strike their enemies, because at that time man usually sleeps more deeply. But to make a forced march and lay an ambuscade in the middle of the night—well, this proved Oak Heart’s mastery of his tribe. Buffalo Bill suspected that the herd of deer had been frightened by something more than a single redskin—or a small scouting-party of them. He knew Oak Heart’s abilities and respected them. Rash as the scout might be at times, he never took foolish chances. To lead the rescue-party into the head of the cañon might bring it to complete ruin.

“Judd! you take the west side of that gorge, and I’ll go east,” he commanded his brother scout.

“How’ll I communicate? Signal?”

“No! If there are many of the reds they have already frightened away most of the small animals that we might imitate, and to give a bird-call would utterly ruin us. No bird will be waking up at this time o’ night—ugh!”

“Well, what then?” demanded the other.

“Never mind what you find, keep still. Meet me here—in twenty minutes if possible; not later than half an hour from now, at most.”

“Half an hour?”

“Yep. And remember, a confounded lot can happen in half an hour,” added Cody, with a chuckle.