Page:The Indian Dispossessed.pdf/275

The Indian Dispossessed last minutes are a long, hot agony of suspense. Suddenly a revolver is accidentally discharged; a middle-aged man, in the frenzy of the moment, mistakes it for the starting gun, and with a bound his horse shoots over the line.

"Hold on there! Come back!" yells the crowd in wild discord, and the man imagines the crazy horde racing at his heels.

"Halt!" commands the soldier in front, bringing his rifle to position; but the man hears nothing, sees nothing, thinks of nothing except the prize ahead. The soldier drops to his knee, and aims; there is no report above the din of the excited mass at the line—only a puff of smoke; the old man topples from his horse—dead, with a bullet in his brain.

Twelve o'clock. The report of the signal gun is echoed down the miles of line from every soldier's rifle, and with a dull roar that makes the earth tremble the racers are off! Horsemen, buggies, buck-boards, wagons, as far either way as one can see—and prairie schooners, too, lumbering and pitching in the rear. Away over the rolling prairie they speed, disappearing finally on the distant hills like a lot of scared jackrabbits, now well strung out. Suddenly a trained race-horse goes down—he has learned his first lesson in badger holes. A bullet from his master's gun ends the animal's suffering, and with him goes his master's last chance. 254