Читать книгу Buffalo Bill's Pursuit; Or, The Heavy Hand of Justice - Ingraham Prentiss - Страница 10

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Snaky Pete had in his band some of the finest trailers of the West, some being men who had made their mark as scouts in earlier and better days.

These men had “gone wrong” at last, and were now outlaws; but they had not lost their skill in scouting and trailing; and on them Snaky Pete relied for information concerning Buffalo Bill, if the latter was really in the country.

After leaving camp, Snaky Pete’s scouts and spies broke into two bands, one being under his command, and the other under command of a faithful lieutenant whose cruelties had gained him the name of The White Wolf.

It was now the night of the second day of their investigations, after news had been received from the town confirming the information of Buffalo Bill’s presence and mission. Word had come to Snaky Pete that Buffalo Bill had been sighted.

As strange as anything was the statement that the great border scout was accompanied by a woman of hatchety face and elderly aspect.

The informants brought a description of the place where Buffalo Bill and this female had gone into camp; and, after a discussion with his men, Snaky Pete decided to try to surround the scout there, and capture or kill him.

Horses were left behind, lest by neighing or stamping they should reveal their presence to the man whom the outlaws hoped to take.

At two o’clock in the morning the late moon came up, giving light; and Snaky Pete delayed his attack until that hour, for the camp of the scout was in a dark hollow, and light was needed to make an attack on it successful. By the hour of midnight Snaky Pete and his men were on the mountain slope just below this camp, and they were creeping up the slope when the first faint light in the cast heralded the rising moon.

Buffalo Bill had been duly diligent, yet he knew nothing of this stealthy approach of the road agents who were determined on his destruction. He had fallen asleep in the earlier part of the night, but now he was awake, having been aroused at about one o’clock. At his command Pizen Jane had lain down, dropping into sound slumber.

The scout knew he was in a dangerous country. In addition to the road agents who had captured Nomad, Indians were known by him to be in the neighborhood. All signs pointed to this as a particularly dangerous locality.

The scout sat in the darkness, before the rising of the moon. His feet were over the concealed fire in a hole in the ground, to keep them warm, for the night was cold, and his coat was drawn tightly about him. His rifle was by his side, and in their places were his revolvers and knife.

The night was very dark just before the moon’s appearance, and he observed that it also was remarkably quiet. Though some wolves howled afar off, near at hand not a sound was to be heard.

This was to his mind suggestive, and portended danger. He thought it meant Indians.

Whether they were crawling on him or not, he could not tell, but that Indians were moving about seemed probable, even in the deathly stillness.

His horse, which had been grazing peacefully, became restless. However, after a few snorts it settled down again to nibbling at the scanty grass, though soon it ceased to feed.

The scout rose now, undoubling his tall form and standing erect in the darkness, with rifle in hand and head bent in a listening attitude. He saw the dark shape where the woman lay.

“No use to arouse her,” was his thought; “she needs all the sleep she can get.”

Pizen Jane was still an enigma to him, in spite of the vast amount of talking she had done. The information given of herself had not been much more informing than word puzzles, but she had clung to him, refusing to leave him, while stoutly declaring that her mission there was the same as his—to hunt down outlaws.

When he heard nothing, the scout walked out to his horse. He found it with head up and ears pricked forward, as if it either saw or heard something suspicious.

Standing by his horse, with hand on the lariat close to its nose, the scout looked out into the silent darkness, while his imagination pictured there crawling Indian forms. He did not think of outlaws.

The moon rose, lighting the rim of the hollow where he had pitched camp; but the rim was covered with a thick growth of bushes and small trees, and so concealed from his searching eyes the forms of the desperadoes who had crept up there.

Suddenly they jumped into view, in the red moonlight, yelling as wildly as if they were Indians; and, with revolvers cracking, they sprang down into the hollow, where they expected to find the scout asleep.

With one swift circling motion Buffalo Bill drew his knife and cut the rope that picketed his horse. In another instant he was on its back, and then, with a wild dash, he broke through the thin line of outlaws on that side.

He knew that if he returned to assist Pizen Jane his life would pay for it; and he preferred that she should fall into the hands of these men, leaving him alive, so that he might aid her later; a thing he certainly could not do if he rushed down there and fell under the fire of their revolvers. Yet he had a certain twinge of conscience, which seemed to accuse him of cowardice and an abandonment of Pizen Jane.

“But she can take care of herself, if any person in the world can, and later I can do something for her,” he thought, as he drove his horse pell-mell through the cracking bushes and the whipping branches of the low trees.

The outlaws near him yelled, and took snapshots at him; and soon other shots came ripping through the brush after him.

But he had cleared the cordon which Snaky Pete was certain he had drawn around the camp; and, with a good horse under him, he felt secure, even though that horse had now neither saddle nor bridle.

He waved his hand grimly in the direction of the yelling outlaws, as his horse galloped on into the open, and he saw the gray prairies at the foot of the mountains lying before him in the light of the rising moon.

“Catch me, if you can!” he shouted, almost gay in the thought of the manner in which the outlaws had let him slip through the meshes of their net.

Then he recalled that now both the woman and old Nick Nomad were prisoners in their hands, while he had escaped by the narrowest margin; and, realizing the delicate and dangerous work lying now before him, he mentally girded himself anew for the desperate work thus laid on him.