Читать книгу Buffalo Bill's Pursuit; Or, The Heavy Hand of Justice - Ingraham Prentiss - Страница 3

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Buffalo Bill drew rein and looked around. He was in a narrow and lonely trail that ran close by the Cinnabar River.

The country was gullied and cut by small cañons. Several hundred feet below him the river roared in its narrow, rock-bound bed. On the sloping side of this cañon was a number of trees, some of them of large size; and trees of the same kind bordered the trail.

The scout, having drawn rein, sat quite still in his saddle, listening. All he heard now was the roar of the stream, the soughing of the wind in the trees, and the restless champing of his spirited horse.

“Help!”

A sudden cry of distress sounded near him, and once more Buffalo Bill stared around.

The call seemed to have come out of the sky, or to have floated from the mist that rose above the tumbling water of the river.

“Can my ears have fooled me?” was his thought.

“Hello!” he called. “What is it?”

A faint mumbling seemed to come in answer to this, but he could not locate the sound nor distinguish the words.

He rode up and down the trail, looking over into the cañon and along its timbered slope; he let his eyes wander over the rocky hillsides opposite the cañon.

“The wind is fooling me!” was his thought. Yet he was not satisfied to let it go at that; so he dismounted, tied his horse, and swung down the incline of the cañon for a number of yards, and there reaching a shelf of rock, he bent over the river and listened. Then he heard it again—a cry for help.

This time it seemed to be above him, almost over his head; and it sounded so startlingly clear that he could have fancied that the lips that made it were at his elbow.

“Yes,” he said, starting up and staring around. “Where are you? I see no one.”

The call rose louder and clearer, so clear that it was absolutely startling. Apparently, the one making the cry had, for the first time, become aware that the call for help had reached human ears.

“Here I am, right here! Help! I’m right here—in this tree!”

Buffalo Bill rose to his feet and stared hard at the tree before him. It was within six yards of him, higher up toward the level where lay the trail; and the voice had seemed to come from the heart of it. Yet he could see no hole in the tree.

It was a large, stubby oak, wide branching and low; its thick boughs extended along the cañon slope, forming there a massy shade.

“Yes!” he said, jumping toward it. “In the tree? Where?”

The voice seemed now to gurgle, and again the answer was so indistinct that Buffalo Bill climbed up to the tree, and walked around it, determined to find an opening, if there was one.

“In the tree?” he asked. “In this tree?”

He kicked on it and hammered on it with his knuckles.

“Yes!” the voice now screamed, seeming to be right before him. “I’m—fast—in—this—consarned—tree! Help! H-e-l-p! H-e-l-p!”

“Yes!” said the scout again, shouting the word. “How did you get in? And how can I reach you?”

“I—fell—in! Help! H-e-l-p! H-e-l-p!”

“Fell in? How? When——”

“Fell in at the top, you fool! Help! H-e-l-p! H-e-l-p!”

The voice had a strange, quavering sound, high-keyed and singular.

“Fell in from the top!” The scout looked at the thick top of the tree. “Well, this must be investigated!”

He began to climb the tree, using his lariat to aid him, looping it around the tree and around his body, thus assisting himself materially in making the ascent. He climbed rapidly in this way, and was soon in the lower branches.

The voice continued to call, sometimes sounding loud and clear, and then almost falling, or seeming to fall, to shrill whispers.

He fancied these changes were due to the wind that roared through the top of the tree, carrying the sound first one way and then another.

In a very short time he was in the matted top of the oak, hanging over the cañon. Then, to his amazement, he saw before him a large hole, such as a bear might have used. The calls were coming from this hole.

He looked into it, but the hole was black as pitch, and he could see nothing. However, the words of the person down in it seemed now to be shot at him as if from the muzzle of a gun.

“Help! H-e-l-p! H-e-l-p! I’m in the tree; and I——”

“Yes—yes! I’m here to help you. How far down are you? I can’t see you.”

“Something’s stoppin’ up the hole now; it’s a bear mebbe! Help! H-e-l-p!”

“I am shutting the light out, I suppose. I want to help you. If I lower my lariat can you get hold of it? Then perhaps I can pull you out, or assist you to get out.”

The calls changed in their character; the person in the tree had become aware that some one was at the opening, and that this some one was proffering assistance.

“Drap yer rope, then!” the voice shrieked. “I kin climb it, mebbe.”

The scout lowered the noose end of his lariat into the hole.

“Just place the noose under your arms,” he instructed, “and I can help you out.”

He felt the rope jerked, and then the voice shouted:

“All O. K. down here; now h’ist away. You’re a stranger, but a friend in need; and a friend in need is wuth a dozen angels any day o’ the week!”

Buffalo Bill began to haul on the rope, and was instantly aware that the individual in the tree was ascending. There was much scratching, sputtering, and fussing, and many singular exclamations; but slowly the tree prisoner ascended. Then the scout beheld the top of a head, surmounted by a queer hat, or bonnet; so that, at that first glance, he thought he had an Indian in the loop of the lariat.

However, when the neck and shoulders, and then the body of the prisoner appeared, he saw that he had drawn a woman out of the tree.

The fact was amazing, and this woman was as singular a creature as he had ever seen: being a tall, raw-boned, awkward female, with a vinegary countenance, and features as homely as if they had been copied from some comic monthly.

“Hello!” she sputtered, as she clutched the edge of the hole and began to draw herself out. “This here is what I calls an unfort’nit condition fer a lady to be in. B’ jings, it is! An’ I reckon I’ve et a peck o’ dirt and rotten wood, into the barg’in!” She spat pieces of wood out of her mouth, revealing a row of fanglike teeth. “And I’ve that mussed up my Sunday clo’es that I won’t be able to go to church nex’ Sunday!”

At this she cackled in a strange way, as if she had uttered a good joke.

With the scout’s assistance, she crawled out of the hole and dropped down in the nest of broad limbs that were matted together in front of the hole, forming there a sort of shelf of verdure.

“Well, may I be switched if I was ever in sich a reedicklus situation before!” she grumbled. “I reckon you never before pulled a lady out o’ the top of a tree?”

The scout was staring at her most ungallantly.

“I didn’t,” he admitted. “I must beg your pardon if I was rough while hauling on that rope.”

“Oh, I ain’t as light as swan’s-down!” she cackled. “I’m purty hefty; and heftier still when I git my mad up and git in a fight.”

“But how did you get in such a place?” he was forced to demand.

“I fell in.”

“Fell in?”

“You kin understand words, can’t ye? Yes, I fell in.”

“But——”

“Well, I clim’ up here last night, thinkin’ it’d be a safer place to spend the night in than down on the ground, with wolves howlin’ ’round, and mebbe road agents perambulatin’ along the trail. It looked like a good sort of a nest up here, and I thought I’d try it fer safety; fer I cal’lated that if a wild cat, er a panther, got into the tree, I could git down, mebbe; and I wasn’t as afeard o’ them as I was o’ the wolves I heerd howlin’. And so I clim’ up. And while mussin’ ’round here on these limbs, tryin’ to make myself comfortable, I slipped into that hole, hurtin’ my arm some; and then, fust thing I knowed, I was down in the holler of the tree inside, and couldn’t git out ag’in.”

She laughed in a mirthless way.

“Well, you better believe that I was scai’t some, when I found I couldn’t git out. I wiggled and I waggled, but it didn’t do no good; and there I had to stay.”

She laughed again, with that singular, mirthless cackle.

“Well, I was safe enough from wolves and varmints of that kind; you’d better believe I was. I didn’t hear a wolf, ner did a single wild cat er panther try to pay me a visit; but when mornin’ come I couldn’t git out.

“I reckon I hollered so much that if the breath I wasted doin’ it was all collected, it’d fill the sails of the British navy. But it didn’t do a mite o’ good, seemed like, till bime-by I reckon you heerd me.”

“Yes, I heard you. Your yells were enough to wake the dead!”

She glanced down into the hole and shivered.

“Now, if you’ll permit me, I’ll try to help you down to the ground,” he said.

“Oh, law, I kin make that all right; that don’t trouble me a little bit!”

To show that it did not, she swung down from the nest of branches, and then, grappling the tree as if she were a man, she slid down to the ground. The scout followed her, and soon stood beside her on the shelving slope.

“Now I’ll help you up to the trail,” he said. “You must be pretty well exhausted by this time, and——”

“Lawk, I don’t need no help!”

She began to scramble up to the trail.

The scout accompanied her, assisting her as much as she would let him; and soon they stood together in the trail.