Читать книгу Buffalo Bill, Peacemaker; Or, On a Troublesome Trail онлайн

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The black charger was in for a surprise. It was sprung with demoralizing suddenness.

Two strides carried Bear Paw over the high point of the ridge; a third stride brought a crash under his rear hoofs, and the after part of his body slumped downward.

A startled yell, seemingly coming out of the very earth, smote on the scout’s ears.

Caught at a disadvantage by the accident, Buffalo Bill was thrown backward out of his saddle and clear of the struggling horse.

Bear Paw’s front hoofs were on solid ground and, with a prodigious effort, he saved himself from sinking and clambered to safety beyond the deceptive ridge. But the scout dropped through the breach, grabbed at a log rafter, missed it, and fell in a huddle for a distance of ten feet.

He brought up on all fours, jarred through and through and blinking in a cloud of dust and a flood of lamplight. A clutter of dirt and broken poles lay around him.

The transformation from an easy gallop over the cool, open plain to this underground hole with its light and dust, had been so abrupt that the scout was taken at a loss.