Knowing that his flight would now be discovered, Tucker quickly darted around the wagon, to get out of the range of Jack's shotgun, with Found lunging on his chain and barking furiously.
Jack sprang to his feet, calling to the fugitive, "Halt! halt!" as he rushed around the wagon, followed by Tom and me, only to see the form of the jayhawker disappearing rapidly in the darkness. Still calling out "Halt! halt!" Jack let off one barrel after another of his shotgun, but high over the head of the retreating ruffian, merely to accelerate his speed. Tucker made no attempt to get his horse and was probably only too glad to get away with a sound carcass.
After chasing him out on the prairie a little way, calling excitedly to one another to mount and follow the fugitive and try to head him off at some point toward the jayhawkers' camp--all to impress Tucker, in case he heard us, of the earnestness of our pursuit and our anxiety to recapture him--we returned to our tent to chuckle over the success of Tom's strategy.
"'Tain't likely," observed Tom, "that he'll fool away time hanging around here to try to get his horse. He's scared bad, for sure, an' no doubt b'lieves every word of that yarn I got off about the company of cavalry; but, to be on the safe side, Jack, you'd best bring the black horse up here an' tie him to the wagon wheel that his former master jest vacated, an' then turn Found loose, an' I'll guarantee no prowler'll come nigh our camp without our gettin' due notice of it."
"Holy smoke," exclaimed Jack, still commenting on the jayhawker's escape, "didn't he run! When I run 'round the wagon after him I could have shot him easy, ef I'd wanted to, fer he lost so much ground a-zigzaggin' as he run, to keep me from hittin' him when I shot, that he hadn't got very far ahead of me. But after I let off both barrels of the shotgun he struck a bee-line fer the timber, only hitting the ground in high places. He'll lose no time in getting back to his camp an' rousing up his men an' telling 'em about the company of cavalry that's comin' after midnight to surround their camp an' hang or shoot every mother's son of 'em. What a time the half-drunken robbers'll have a-saddling up in the dark an' gettin' away from there in a hurry. They'll put as many miles as they can between them an' their ol' camp before that company of cavalry surrounds 'em."