But it gave them no delight. A yell from the savages told them they were seen, and simultaneously with the shout, they perceived a score of horsemen spurring from the crowd, and riding at full speed towards them.
They were both splendidly mounted, and might still have had a fair chance of escape; but now another sight met their eyes that once more almost drove them to despair.
A promontory of the cliff, stretching far out over the sandy plain, lay directly in their track. Its point was nearer to the pursuers than to them. Before they could reach, and turn it, their retreat would be intercepted.
Was there still a chance to escape in the opposite direction?
Again suddenly turning, they galloped back as they had come; again entered the belt of smoke; and, riding on through it, reached the clear sunlight beyond.
Again a torturing disappointment. Another promontory – twin to the first – jutted out to obstruct them.
There was no mystery in the matter. They saw the mistake they had made. In escaping under cover of the cloud they had gone too far, ridden direct into a deep embayment of the cliff!
Their pursuers, who had turned promptly as they, once more had the advantage. The outlying point of rocks was nearer to them, and they would be almost certain to arrive at it first.
To the fugitives there appeared no alternative but to ride on, and take the chance of hewing their way through the savages surrounding – for certainly they would be surrounded.
“Git your knife riddy, Frank!” shouted Wilder, as he dug his heels into his horse’s side and put the animal to full speed. “Let’s keep close thegither – livin’ or dead, let’s keep thegither!”
Their steeds needed no urging. To an American horse accustomed to the prairies there is no spur like the yell of an Indian; for he knows that along with it usually comes the shock of a bullet, or the sting of a barbed shaft.
Both bounded off together, and went over the soft sand, silent, but swift as the wind.
In vain. Before they could reach the projecting point, the savages had got up, and were clustering around it. At least a score, with spears couched, bows bent, and clubs brandishing, stood ready to receive them.
It was a gauntlet the pursued men might well despair of being able to run. Truly now seemed their retreat cut off, and surely did death appear to stare them in the face.
“We must die, Walt,” said the young prairie merchant, as he faced despairingly toward his companion.
“Maybe not yet,” answered Wilder, as with a searching glance, he directed his eye along the façade of the cliff.
The red sandstone rose rugged and frowning, full five hundred feet overhead. To the superficial glance it seemed to forbid all chance either of being scaled, or affording concealment. There was not even a boulder below, behind which they might find a momentary shelter from the shafts of the pursuers. For all that, Wilder continued to scan it, as if recalling some old recollection.
“This must be the place,” he muttered. “It is, by God!” he added more emphatically, at the same time wrenching his horse around, riding sharp off, and calling to his companion to follow him.
Hamersley obeyed, and rode after, without knowing what next. But, in another instant, he divined the intent of this sudden change in the tactics of his fellow fugitive. For before riding far his eyes fell upon a dark list, which indicated an opening in the escarpment.
It was a mere crack, or chine, scarce so wide as a doorway, and barely large enough to admit a man on horseback; though vertically it traversed the cliff to its top, splitting it from base to summit.
“Off o’ yur hoss!” cried Wilder, as he pulled up in front of it, at the same time flinging himself from his own. “Drop the bridle, and leave him behint. One o’ ’em’ll be enough for what I want, an’ let that be myen. Poor critter, it air a pity! But it can’t be helped. We must hev some kiver to screen us. Quick, Frank, or the skunks will be on to us!”
Painful as it was to abandon his brave steed, Hamersley did as directed without knowing why. The last speeches of the guide were somewhat enigmatical, though he presumed they meant an important signification.
Slipping down from his saddle, he stood by his horse’s side, a noble steed, the best blood of his own State, Kentucky, famed for its fine stock. The animal appeared to know that its master was about to part from it. It turned its head towards him; and, with bent neck, and steaming nostrils, gave utterance to a low neigh that, while proclaiming affection, seemed to say, “Why do you forsake me?”
Under other circumstances the Kentuckian would have shed tears. For months he and his horse had been as man and man together in many a long prairie journey – a companionship which unites the traveller to his steed in liens strong as human friendship, almost as lasting, and almost as painful to break. So Frank Hamersley felt, as he flung the bridle back on the animal’s withers – still retaining hold of the rein, loth to relinquish it.
But there was no alternative. Behind were the shouting pursuers quickly coming on. He could see their brandished spears glancing in the sun glare. They would soon be within reach, thrusting through his body; their barbed blades piercing him between the ribs.
No time for sentiment nor dallying now, without the certainty of being slain.
He gave one last look at his steed, and then letting go the rein, turned away, as one who, by stern necessity, abandons a friend, fearing reproach for what he does, but without the power to explain it.
For a time the abandoned steed kept its place, with glances inquiringly sent after the master who had forsaken it. Then, as the yelling crew came closer behind, it threw up its head, snorted, and tore off with trailing bridle.
Hamersley had turned to the guide, now also afoot, but still retaining hold of his horse, which he was conducting towards the crack in the cliff, with all his energies forcing it to follow him; for the animal moved reluctantly, as though suspecting danger inside the darksome cleft.
Still urging it on, he shouted back to the Kentuckian, “You go first, Frank! Up into the kanyon, without losin’ a second’s time. Hyar, take my gun, an’ load both, whiles I see to the closin’ o’ the gap.”
Seizing both guns in his grasp, Hamersley sprang into the chine, stopping when he got well within its grim jaws.
Wilder went after, leading his steed, that still strained back upon the bridle.
There was a large stone across the aperture, over which the horse had to straddle. This being above two feet in height, when the animal had got its forelegs over Wilder checked it to a stand. Hitherto following him with forced obedience, it now trembled, and showed a strong determination to go back. There was an expression, in its owner’s eye it had never seen before – something that terribly frayed it. But it could not now do this, though ever so inclined. With its ribs close pressing the rocks on each side, it was unable to turn; while the bridle drawn firmly in front hindered it from retiring.
Hamersley, busily engaged in loading the rifles, nevertheless found time to glance at Wilder’s doings, wondering what he was about.
“It air a pity!” soliloquised the latter, repeating his former words in similar tones of commiseration. “F’r all that, the thing must be done. If thar war a rock big enough, or a log, or anythin’. No! thar ain’t ne’er another chance to make kiver. So hyar goes for a bit o’ butcherin’.”
As the guide thus delivered himself, Hamersley saw him jerk the bowie knife from his belt, its blade red and still reeking with human gore. In another instant its edge was drawn across the throat of the horse, from which the blood gushed forth in a thick, strong stream, like water from the spout of a pump. The creature made a last desperate effort to get off, but with its forelegs over the rocks and head held down between them, it could not stir from the spot. After a convulsive throe or two, it sank down till its ribs rested upon the straddled stone;