The scout ensconced the horse behind a thicket, and wormed his way out into the open where he could draw bead on anybody passing along the river trail. It was a long shot, but the scout had succeeded in making more ticklish ones in times past. By and by the band of tired horsemen loped along the trail. The light was too uncertain for Cody to distinguish one man from the other; but he saw one riding ahead and carrying the girl before him, and he believed it must be Bennett. He did not think the fellow would let the White Antelope out of his own bloody hands. Therefore he took sight--deadly sight--at this man, and shot him through the head! A yell rose from the bandits as the rifle exploded and the man pitched off his mount. It was answered by Buffalo Bill’s eery war-whoop. The seven remaining bandits knew who had fired the fatal shot. But, although the immediate captor of the girl had fallen, she had no time to urge the pony to one side and thus escape. Buffalo Bill saw his mistake in a moment. With a wild yell Boyd Bennett spurred to the side of the horse which White Antelope sat, and threatened her with drawn bowie as the whole cavalcade shot down the river trail and put a brush-clump between them and the scout’s rifle. When they appeared again they were out of rifle-shot. “Seven of them left,” muttered Buffalo Bill. “I thought I had that devil that time. But let him wait--let him wait!” He mounted Chief once more and rode for a time in the wake of the bandits. But, fearing that some of them might slip off their horses and lay in wait for him, he turned aside into the hilly country and so saw the refugees only occasionally from the summits of certain hills which he climbed. He kept them from resting, however, during the forenoon. By midday the desperadoes’ ponies were completely worn out. Had they not been so fearful of the scout the seven men might have shown fight. They were equally well armed with Buffalo Bill, and some of them were good shots. But Boyd Bennett thought only of escape with the girl, and his mates were in a blue funk, anyway. They came at noon to a deserted Indian encampment. It was a hunting-camp, the braves evidently being out in the hills after game and having left nobody but the squaws on guard. The squaws had gone into the bush after late berries. Therefore, there was none to balk the bandits. There were no ponies, or the men would have left their fagged mounts and stolen those of the red men. But in the river lay two good-sized canoes. Abandoning their ponies the outlaws seized these boats, forced White Antelope into the leading one with Boyd Bennett and two others, and the four remaining men entering the other boat, both were pushed off and paddled down the stream.