thirsty chief
wished to spare him if he could, for Sam had rescued Weatherford once
from an imminent peril at great risk to himself, though the story is too
long to be told here. Whether or not there is nobleness enough in the
Indian character to make the savage remember a benefit received, I am
sure I cannot say, but Weatherford was _three-fourths white_, and with
all his ferocity in war, history credits him with more than one generous
impulse like that by which Sam was now profiting. The two rode on,
Weatherford pretending to be in hot pursuit, shooting occasionally and
yelling at every leap of his horse. The bluff towards which they rode
was probably a hundred feet high, and was washed at its base by a deep
but sluggish creek, on the other side of which lay a densely wooded
swamp. Through the top of the bluff, however, was a sort of fissure or
ravine washed by the flow of water during the rainy season, and where it
terminated the height of its mouth above the stream was not more than
forty or fifty feet. Down this gully Sam rode furiously, so that his
horse might not be able to refuse the leap, which was a frightful one.
Coming to the edge of the precipice with headlong speed, the animal
could not draw back but plunged over with Sam sitting bolt upright on
his back. Riding back to the top of the bank Weatherford met his
warriors.

[Illustration: THE PERILOUS LEAP.]

"Where is he?" asked the foremost.

"His _body_ is down there in the creek. I drove him over the precipice,"
said the chief with well-feigned delight.[2]

[Footnote 2: This incident of the leap over the precipice is strictly
historical, else I should never have ventured to print it here.
Weatherford himself, on the 23d of December, 1813, after the battle of
Tohopeka, escaped a body of dragoons in a precisely similar manner. A
still more remarkable leap was that of Major Samuel McCullock, on the 2d
of September 1777, over a precipice fully 300 feet high near Wheeling,
West Virginia. He jumped over on horseback, thinking such a death
preferable to savage torture, but singularly enough, both he and his
horse escaped unhurt.]

His purpose evidently, was to satisfy the warriors that Sam was
certainly killed, so that they might pursue him no further. Whether he
was yet alive or not, Weatherford himself had no means of knowing. The
last he had seen of him was as he went over the precipice, sitting bolt
upright on his horse, grasping his rifle and looking s