CHAPTER XVI.
ATTACKED BY A WILDCAT.
"You fiend!"
This was all Pawnee Brown could say, as with a face full of bitter hatred Yellow Elk advanced and applied the torch to the dry brush which encircled his feet.
In vain the great scout endeavored to wrench himself free from the fire-stake. Yellow Elk and his followers had done their work well and he was held as in a vise.
"Pawnee Brown shall burn slowly," said the Indian chief, hoping to make the scout show the white feather. "Yellow Elk will watch that the fire does not mount to his body too quickly."
"If you want to kill me why don't you put a bullet through my heart and have done with it," said the boomer as coolly as he could. The fire was now burning around his feet and ankles and the pain was increasing with every second of time.
"White man shall learn what it is to suffer," said Spotted Nose. "He killed my friend, the Little Mule."
"Your friend tried to take my life."
"Bah! say no more but burn! burn!" hissed Yellow Elk.
And with a stick he shoved the flaming brush closer in around the scout's legs.
It was a fearful moment—a moment in which Pawnee Brown's life hung by a single thread. The flames were leaping up all around him. He closed his eyes and half murmured a prayer for divine aid.
Crack! bang! crack! Two pistol shots and the report of a rifle echoed throughout the cave, and as Pawnee Brown opened his eyes in astonishment Spotted Nose threw up his arms and fell forward in the flames at his feet, dead! The Indian who had been with Spotted Nose also went down, mortally wounded, while Yellow Elk was hit in the left arm.
"Down with the reds! came in the ringing voice of Jack Rasco, and he appeared from out of a cloud of smoke, closely followed by Dan Gilbert and Dick. "Pawnee! Am I in time? I hope ter Heaven I am!"
"Jack!" cried the great scout. A slash of Rasco's hunting knife and he was free. "Good for you!" and then Pawnee Brown had his hands full for several minutes beating out the flames which had ignited his boot soles and the bottoms of his trousers.
"We plugged the three of em," said Gilbert. "I knocked thet one," and he pointed to the Indian who was breathing his last.
"I hit the Indian with the yellow plume," put in Dick, and he could not help but shudder.
"That was Yellow Elk," said Rasco. "But whar is he now?"
All the white men turned quickly, looking up and down the cave. It was useless. Yellow Elk had disappeared.
"He must not escape!" cried Pawnee Brown. "I have an account to settle with him for starting that fire."
"But whar is Nellie?" asked Rasco, impatiently, looking around with a falling face.
"She ran away when the other Indians came to Yellow Elk's assistance," answered Pawnee Brown, and in a few hurried words he told his story.
"Then she can't be far off."
"Let us hunt for her at once," cried Dick, and his enthusiasm made the men laugh, at which the boy blushed furiously.
"Never mind, Dick, yer don't think no more of her nor I do," said Rasco. "Which way, Pawnee?"
"This way, boys." The scout turned to the Indian who had been wounded. "Dead as a door nail. Pity it wasn't Yellow Elk."
"So say I," answered Rasco. "But we'll git him yet, mark my words!"
With all possible speed they ran out of the cave and to the spot where they had left their horses. Here a disagreeable surprise awaited them. Every animal was gone, including the one Pawnee Brown had ridden.
"More of Yellow Elk's work!" muttered the boomer. "I'll tell you, men, that red is a corker, and as a dead Indian he couldn't be beat."
"I declar' this most stumps me!" growled Dan Gilbert. "Here's the trail plain enough, but it's all out of the question ter follow on shank's own mare."
"Let us hunt up Clemmer and the others," suggested Jack Rasco.
"We must be cautious—the cavalry may be somewhere in the vicinity," added Pawnee Brown. "How the redskins escaped them is a mystery to me."
"They are evidently as sly as their forefathers," said Dick. "But, really, something ought to be done. If we—hullo, there's a horse down in yonder clearing!"
"Bonnie Bird!" shouted Pawnee Brown, in great delight. It was indeed the beautiful mare. A second cry and the steed came bounding up to her master.
"Now I can follow even if the others can't," said the scout. "Rasco, it's a pity you haven't a mount. It is no more than right that you should follow up your niece. If you insist upon it I'll let you have Bonnie Bird. I wonder if Nellie or the redskin had her?"
"I won't take yer horse, Pawnee—it's askin too much," answered Rasco. "Supposin' we both mount her? If Bonnie Bird got away from Yellow Elk it's more'n likely one of the other hosses got away, too."
That's so. Well, get up, Jack, and let us lose no time."
Soon both men were mounted. A few words all around followed, and it was agreed that Dick and Gilbert should try to hunt up Clemmer and the others, and then away went Pawnee Brown and Rasco upon Yellow Elk's trail.
Sudden Jack Rasco uttered a cry.
"See, Pawnee, here's whar another of the hosses got away. Hang me if I don't think it war my hoss, too!"
"Yes, and here is where the horse dropped into a walk," he answered, "I don't believe he can be far off."
Without delay Rasco slid to the ground.
"I'll follow him up afoot," he declared. "I'm fresh and can run it putty good. You go ahead with the regular trail."
The trail left by Yellow Elk ran down along the edge of the stream for a distance of perhaps a hundred yards, then it came out on a series of flat rocks and was lost to view.
Pawnee Brown came to a halt. Had Yellow Elk crossed the stream, or doubled on the trail and gone back?
Dismounting, he got down upon his hands and knees and examined the last hoofprints with extreme care.
The examination lasted for fully ten minutes. No white man could follow a trail better than this leader of the boomers, yet for the time being he was baffled.
Yellow Elk had led the horses into the water, but the trail did not extend across the stream.
"He's an artful dodger!" mused Pawnee Brown, when of a sudden he became silent.
A faint scratching, as of tree bark, had come to his ears. The noise was but a short distance away.
"Some animal," he thought. "No human being would make such a sound as that."
Another ten seconds of painful silence followed. The scratching sound had just been resumed when Bonnie Bird wheeled about as if on a pivot.
"Ha!"
The exclamation came from between Pawnee Brown's set teeth. There, from between the branches of a tree just in front of him, glared a pair of yellowish-green eyes.
The blazing optics belonged to a monstrous wildcat!
As quick as a flash Pawnee Brown raised his pistol and pulled the trigger.
Crack! The wildcat was hit in the side. The shot was a glancing one and did but little damage.
Whirr! down came the body straight for the boomer, landing half upon his shoulder and half upon Bonnie Bird's mane.
The little mare was thoroughly frightened, and giving a snort and a plunge she threw both rider and wildcat to the ground.
As Pawnee Brown went down he tried to push the monstrous cat from him, but the beast had its claws fastened in the scout's clothing and could not be shook off.
Crack! Again Pawnee Brown fired. The flash was almost directly in the wildcat's face, and shot in the left forepaw the beast uttered a fearful howl of pain and dropped back.
But only for an instant. The pain only increased its anger, and with gleaming teeth it crouched down and made another spring, right for the boomer's throat.
Crack! crack! twice again the pistol rang out. But the big cat was now wary and both shots failed to take effect.
The pistol being now empty, Pawnee Brown hurled it at the enraged beast, striking it in the nose and eliciting another scream of rage.
Then, as the wildcat came on for a final attack, the scout pulled out his hunting knife.
As the wildcat came down the hand holding the hunting knife was raised, with the blade of the knife pointing upward.
A lightning-like swing and a thrust, and for one brief instant the wildcat was poised in the air, upon the very blade of the long knife.
The blow had been a true one, the knife point reaching the beast's heart, and when the animal fell it rolled down among the leaves, dead.
"By thunder! but that was something I hadn't bargained for!" murmured the great scout, as he surveyed the carcass. "That's about the biggest wildcat I ever saw. It's a good thing I didn't meet him in the dark."
Wiping off his hunting knife, he restored it to his belt. Then he picked up his pistol and started to reload it, at the same time whistling for Bonnie Bird, who, he felt sure, must be close by.
As Pawnee Brown stood reloading the pistol and whistling for his mare he did not notice a shadow behind him. Slowly but surely someone was drawing closer to him. It was Yellow Elk.
The Indian chief was on foot. In his left hand he carried a cocked revolver, in his right an old-time tomahawk, from which he had refused to be parted when placed on the Indian reservation.
The redskin's face was full of the most bitter animosity it is possible to imagine. The glare of wickedness in his eyes fairly put the look that had lived in the wildcat's optics to shame. His snags of yellow teeth were firmly set.
He was resolved to kill his enemy there and then. Pawnee Brown should not again escape him.