Читать книгу Buffalo Bill, the Border King; Or, Redskin and Cowboy онлайн

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“Thanks be for that!” thought the scout. “Now, what’s ahead?”

That the Sioux had but one ring of sentinels around the fort he knew was not the fact. There were two lines at least—possibly three. He raised his head like a turtle stretching from its shell and tried to pierce the gloom of the valley.

And then it was that he suddenly beheld a tall figure standing motionless not far ahead of him and almost in his path. It was a chief of some importance from his war-bonnet, and he had perhaps been going the rounds of his sentinels. Now he stood motionless, his back to the scout, looking toward the fort, one elbow leaning upon a broken stub of a tree, the other hand holding his rifle, hanging idly by his side. The chief was evidently in a reverie—or was he listening? Had he heard the scout’s breathing—or some other sound that warned him of the white man’s presence?

The question seared Texas Jack’s brain. It startled him to action. This was no moment for taking chances.

He rose up like a shadow, and, with great, catlike strides, stole upon the statuelike Indian. It went against the grain for the scout to strike even a redskin from behind. Man to man and face to face in a fair struggle would have pleased Texas Jack better. But the entire success of his attempt to reach the fort depended upon the action of the next few seconds.