Читать книгу Buffalo Bill's Boy Bugler; Or, The Last of the Indian Ring - Ingraham Prentiss - Страница 12

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Ominously the words sounded in the hush that followed the pronunciation of the death sentence on Buffalo Bill—“One, two, three!”

The scout had been dazed by the long flight through the air and impact with the water. He scarcely realized the import of the words.

“Four, five, six!” the counting continued slowly, while the arms of four men settled into rigidity, holding four frowning rifle muzzles on the human target.

“Seven, eight, nine!” the counting went on relentlessly, while four checks settled more firmly on the rifle stocks and four eyes gleamed along the shining steel.

“Ten, eleven, twelve!” and the scout had begun to understand the situation.

“Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen!”

Standing waist-deep in the muddy water, the scout suddenly realized that four shining rifles were aimed at his heart, and a sonorous voice was saying:

“Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen!”

Two seconds more and those leaden messengers would pierce his body.

In his hazy struggle to reclaim his mind the scout had dropped his hands helplessly into the water at his sides. Now both came up suddenly, sending a shower, and at the same instant he threw himself sidewise with a great splash.

Four rifles cracked as one, and as many bullets cut the spray where the scout had stood.

The marksmen had been startled and confused by the manœuvre, and blazed away together at the spot they were holding on. But the scout was not there, and before they had recovered from their surprise he was bounding up the bank like a deer.

Two other shots went wild, and then Buffalo Bill’s revolvers got busy from somewhere in the underbrush along the bank, and the four riflemen and the one who had pronounced the death sentence ducked for cover.

In spite of their wetting the scout’s revolvers were in working condition.

“One! two! three!” he shouted, sending as many bullets into the bushes after the tumbling, panicky thugs, who had heard Buffalo Bill’s reputation as a shot.

“Here, Bear Paw, lively now!” called the scout to his horse, as he darted into a dense thicket. The intelligent animal hastened after his master.

As the scout was swinging into the saddle an Indian appeared before him and said:

“Come, Pa-e-has-ka.”

The scout recognized White-man-runs-him, the friendly trailer who was destined, within a few months, to play a prominent part in one of the most thrilling dramas in the history of conflicts with American Indians.

The Indian sprang across a little open space, with Bear Paw at his heels. After many devious turns and manœuvres among the rocks the Indian emerged upon the plain and pointed a little to the south of the setting sun.

“Bozeman is there; white bad men here; Pa-e-has-ka have care.”

The scout reached his hand, and for a moment solemnly clasped that of the red brother; then, pulling a beautiful pearl-handled hunting knife from his own belt, he passed it hilt foremost to the Indian.

“Never soil it with innocent blood, brother,” he said, and rode away.

The Indian stood with the handsome knife in his hand, looking first at it and then after the figure of a horseman that was rapidly disappearing in the swiftly falling night.

If the red lips formed a vow there was none to hear, but in swiftly following events that knife figured, and was in the famous battle in which General Custer and nearly three hundred brave men fell.

Little Cayuse had no difficulty in keeping the rascally Price in sight, and when the latter entered a lonely cabin on the outskirts of the town the Piute was not far away. He saw from safe concealment another man come out and peer intently about, as if fearing eavesdroppers, and then pass around the cabin to discover if any person might be hiding in the shadows near by.

Then, before the fellow had barely closed the door, the silent moccasins of Little Cayuse had covered the distance to the hut, and their owner was searching the walls for crack or crevice by which he could see and hear what was going on within. The search was unrewarded, and Cayuse sought other means.

Near the hut was an overgrown, much-tangled willow, which reached out as if to embrace this little habitation of man. Cayuse allowed an “Ugh!” of satisfaction to escape him as he swung into the tree with the agility of a monkey.

Out on the largest branch which overhung the roof of the shanty, the Indian youth crept, and was soon perched alongside a hole at the back of the wide stone chimney. From this position he could look into the single room below through the big fireplace in which no fire had been lighted. By leaning far forward with his head in the chimney, he could hear distinctly the words of the men.

There were four besides Price in the cabin, and at times each passed near enough to the chimney flue so that Cayuse obtained a good view of their features.

The five men finally sat around a rough table and got down to business. Price was the first to broach the all-important subject.

“Well, Sawyer; what’s the word from Washington? You say you were ordered here in haste.”

“I am going all along the line to Oregon to put the boys on their guard and to tell them what we have learned of conditions in the Indian reservations.”

“Don’t you suppose we know conditions on the reservations as well as you do in Washington?” asked Price.

“Not if you give your time to gambling and drinking poor rum,” Sawyer answered.

“Who’re you shooting at? I don’t do either one to any extent that hurts.”

“I didn’t say you did, but somebody is doing it, and is not contented with a fair thing, but is robbing the Indians so barefacedly that there is going to be an uprising. Then, too, things are being carried on so boldly and openly that the government is getting wise to the ‘ring,’ and there is no telling when the axe will fall in high places in Washington.”

“You’re always whining at Washington about its fellows out here. We do the dirty work and take all the kicks, and you fellows gobble all the proceeds.”

“You know better than that, Price. As near as I can find out you are salting away more plunder than any other along the line. We give you credit for organizing county officials and courts, but you ought to manage to let the reds have enough to keep them fairly contented or do something to pacify them. The devil is to pay now. Sitting Bull has declined to sign a treaty giving up any more lands, and he refuses to agree to remain upon a reservation.”

“Let the government teach him a lesson, then.”

“That is a good sight easier said than done, Price; and, then, again, what is to become of your occupation and mine if we have a war with the Sioux? The Bad Lands are swarming with Sioux warriors now. Sitting Bull is the most powerful Indian in America, and in case of a government movement against them there will be a good deal of blood shed, and the country will demand an investigation of the cause.”

“How do you know so much about Sitting Bull and his warriors in the Bad Lands? We haven’t heard anything about it here.”

“That is just the trouble, Price. You fellows out here don’t attempt to keep track of things. Small bands of reds are making their way down the Gallatin Valley every day, and because they don’t come yelling and shooting into town you think they are a thousand miles away.

“For months the department has been attempting to soothe the feelings of the Sioux, while Cody, Custer, Crook, Gibbon, and Terry have been making a study of the situation. Their reports are filed in Washington, and matters are looking serious. Cody is in this territory, somewhere, now.”

“He won’t be long.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I have my trap all set, and Mr. Buffalo Bill will soon come up among the missing.”

“Now, look here, Price. I believe you are determined to wreck the whole business. You speak of putting Buffalo Bill out of the way as if it were as easy as the killing of a yellow dog. Why don’t you let up and keep quiet while he is in this part of the country, instead of getting in deeper by trying to beat a better man than you at his own game?”

“Well, Sawyer, I like your nerve. You talk to me as if I was a boy of about fifteen. Do you suppose I am playing any ordinary hand of cards against Cody? If you do you are mistaken; but I said he is soon to drop out of the counting, and he is.”

“Very well, Price; when I get back at the capital, I’ll tell them where you went to.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that when you spring your trap you will find you are the one who is in it, and Buffalo Bill will be looking for other easy game.”

In his zeal to learn all with reference to Pa-e-has-ka, Little Cayuse had climbed up the tree and out upon another limb, intending to quietly reach the roof and hunt for some means of entering the cabin. As it happened, however, the branch slipped from under him, and he dropped upon the roof with a thud, crashing through the flimsy covering and landing on a few loose boards that separated the loft from the lower room in which the men were seated.

There was no escape. He was in plain view of the heavily armed men below, and surrender was the only course open. In five minutes Cayuse was a prisoner and under guard by the demand of Sawyer, who countermanded Price’s order that the Piute be shot at once. Price told Sawyer that Cayuse was a trailer for Buffalo Bill and already knew too much, but the man from Washington, in spite of his dishonest calling, realized that the very violence of the methods of the “ring” would prove to be its own executioner. There were far too many such men as Price and his followers.