The scout saw it all, and made no effort to change the direction he was pursuing.  He only grasped his bowie the more tightly and compressed his lips.  There was an ugly gleam in his sharp gray eye as he braced himself for the conflict.

The nose of the mustang was almost touching the head of the other horses, when he swerved almost at right angles, and, with a tremendous burst of speed, shot through the nearest “opening.”  This threw all his enemies, by the brilliant manœuvre, in his rear, and left the clear prairie before him as a path in which to complete his flight.

The space seperating Sut from his enemies was too slight for him to reach safety by one plunge.  The mustang was scarcely under way, when he was compelled to dodge as abruptly as before, and in a trice he made a third, which was done with cosummate skill, and yet with the unavoidable result of bringing the scout in collision with a swarthy warrior.  Sut was expecting it, and, bursting like a thunderbolt upon the howling red-skin, he drove the flashing bowie with such prodigious force that, to repeat an old expression, the first thing the Apache knew, he knew nothing.

At the moment of making the thrust, a painted warrior riding on the opposite side struck a terrific blow with his tomahawk, but the dextrous flirt of the hunter’s head permitted the weapon to whizz by and graze his cheek.  The time was to short for him to do any work with the knife in the other hand, quick as was Simpson in his movements; so the tomahawk had scarcely descended upon its harmless mission when he sent out his left hand straight from his shoulder, like the plunge of a piston rod.

It struck the astonished warrior straight in his face with irresistible force and his head went down and his heels up so suddenly that he was knocked completely off his horse—­a thing which, it may be safely said, does not occur with an Apache or Comache once in a thousand times, unless it be a bullet that tumbles him to the ground.  This opened the way again and the magnificent mustang settled down to the work of life and death.

Sut saw that it was impossible for any of the horsemen to throw themselves across his track, and so he flung himself forward upon his matchless steed and said a few words encouragingly in the hope that it might add a particle to his speed; but that was impossible, as the noble creature was doing his very utmost.

The pursuing Apaches seemed to cling to the hope of capturing the daring scout, for they thundered away in pursuit, while he as steadily drew away from them.  Suddenly came the crack of rifles, but Sut noticed that most of them came from a point in advance, and he raised his head enough to learn what it meant.

The mustang (whether by design or accident cannot be stated) had sped continually in the direction of New Boston, and was dashing down toward that point.  The pioneers were on the alert, and the instant they could distinguish pursuers from pursued, they opened on the former, with the result of tumbling several from the backs of their steeds.  This so disorganized the hot pursuit that in the flurry of the moment the scout shot in among the group of alarmed horses, sprang from his back, and was soon among his friends, from whom he had been seperated less than half an hour.