Buffalo Bill turned in the saddle and dropped one of them by a well-directed shot, and then wounded another. The ferocious survivors began to tear at the fallen wolves as soon as they were down, so that within a few minutes nothing was left of them but shining, dislocated bones. The sight was enough to make the scout and the woman shudder. Buffalo Bill urged the horse still farther out into the river, until the water stood midway of its sides. The wolves on the shore seemed, within a few minutes, to number scores, and even hundreds. Their snapping teeth, fiery eyes, and struggling movements made the shore a writhing mass of fiendish forms. Some of them dashed into the water and began to swim out to the horse; but they were at a disadvantage in the water; for they could not there make the tremendous leaps that would carry them to the horse’s back, nor could they move quickly enough to baffle the revolver fire of the scout and Pizen Jane. Pizen Jane was reloading and firing the revolver the scout had given her, with a coolness and courage that would have befitted a man. Between them they succeeded in shooting every wolf that swam close to the horse. The dark bodies of dead wolves bobbed in the stream below the ford, where there were some eddies, that, catching them, whirled them slowly round and round. But the fate of the wolves already slain had small deterrent effect on those still living, and their numbers seemed inexhaustible. Where they came from could hardly be told; they seemed to spring out of the very ground; and they ran snapping and yelping along the banks, on both sides of the river now, while at intervals a few of the most desperate plunged in and tried to reach the horse and its riders. Generous as his supply of ammunition was, Buffalo Bill began to fear it would soon be exhausted. Suddenly, while the wolves still raved on the shores of the moonlit river, and dashed into the water in efforts to reach the horse, a wild scream was heard near by, which had on them a marvelous effect. It was the scream of a panther. The big beast had scented the flowing blood, and doubtless had come for a feast. The leaping forms of the wolves dropped out of sight with almost startling suddenness, as the lithe body of the panther came down the hillside with springing leaps. “Glory be!” cried Pizen Jane, with an almost hysterical cackle. “The painter has druv ’em off.” The “painter,” as she called the panther, came on toward the river, not at first seeing the horse midway of the stream. In another moment it would have been cracking the bones of the dead wolves, if the horse had not been startled by its coming and began to plunge in the water, making a good deal of noise. The panther stopped, throwing up its head and looking down at the horse. It was startled, and seemed too surprised for a moment to move. Then, with a quick leap, it turned aside; and in another instant it, too, was lost to sight in the darkness.