Читать книгу Buffalo Bill's Weird Warning; Or, Dauntless Dell's Rival - Ingraham Prentiss - Страница 6

Table of Contents

“Whatever d’ye think Wild Bill wants us fur, Buffler?”

“I haven’t any idea, Nick, but he’ll think we’re a long time getting to Sun Dance.”

“That paper-tork o’ his had a hard time reachin’ us, an’ we’ve had er hard time gittin’ through ter Sun Dance—leastways, you an’ Dell hev had. But we kain’t be so pizen fur from ther camp now.”

“This short cut we’re taking through the hills will bring us into the cañon above the camp. Dell and Cayuse will come in below. We ought to get to the place we’re going a good two hours ahead of them.”

The king of scouts, and his old trapper pard, Nick Nomad, were riding through the rough country on their way to Sun Dance.

It was early morning, and the trapper and his pards had been in the saddle all night.

A number of things had conspired to delay them in taking the trail in answer to Wild Bill’s “paper-talk.” Among other things, Crawling Bear had been slain by hostile Cheyennes, and Hickok’s note had come into the scout’s hands by another messenger.

Some distance back on the Sun Dance trail, the scout and Nomad had separated from Dell Dauntless, Buffalo Bill’s girl pard, and the Piute boy, Little Cayuse, the scout and the trapper to travel “’cross lots,” and Dell and Cayuse to follow the regular trail.

This would bring Buffalo Bill and Nomad into Sun Dance a little earlier than if they had kept to the trail, and they were already so late that they were anxious to save even an hour or two.

The course they took was a rugged one, and they had to climb steep hills and ridges, and urge their mounts over ground that would have tried the strongest nerves.

But it was all for Pard Hickok, and no loyal pard ever called on Buffalo Bill in vain.

The scout, however, was vastly puzzled to account for the business that had led to the call. In his note, Wild Bill had not written a word about that.

“Wild Bill must hev tangled up with somethin’ purty fierce,” remarked Nomad, “or he’d never hev sent in a hurry-up call like thet.”

“It may not be anything that concerns Wild Bill, Nick, but something that concerns us,” the scout returned. “Hickok may not be in trouble; on the contrary, he may know something we’ve got to know in order to avoid trouble ourselves.”

“Kerect, Buffler. I hadn’t thort o’ ther thing in thet light afore. We ain’t neither of us very much in ther habit o’ side-steppin’ when trouble hits ther pike an’ p’ints fer us. This hyar trouble is er quare thing, pard; plumb quare. Some o’ the people has trouble all ther time, an’ all ther people has trouble some o’ the time, but all ther people kain’t hev trouble all ther time.”

The scout laughed.

“What of it, anyhow, Nick?” he asked.

“Nothin’. I was jest torkin’ ter give my bazoo exercise. No man knows jest when trouble is goin’ ter hit him. Sometimes he kin see et a good ways off, like er choo-choo train. He kin hyer ther bell an’ ther whistle, an’ ef he’s a-walkin’ on ther track, he’s er ijut ef he don’t step off, an’ let et go by. An’ then, ag’in, trouble comes on ye around a sharp curve. The despatcher mixes orders, er somethin’, an’ afore ye know et ye’re tangled up in a head-on collision. Now, thet’s what I call——”

Nomad was interrupted. As if to illustrate his rambling remarks, the crack of a rifle was heard in the distance, followed by a shrill scream.

The two pards, at that moment, were on the crest of a rocky ridge. Instinctively they stopped their horses and shot their glances in the direction from which the report and the scream reached them. What they saw set their pulses to a swifter beat.

Speeding toward them along the foot of the ridge was an Indian girl. She was mounted on a sorrel cayuse, and the pony was getting over the ground like a streak. The girl was bending forward, her blanket flying in the wind behind, and her quirt was dropping on the pony’s withers with lightninglike rapidity.

She was being pursued by an Indian buck, armed with a rifle. The buck seemed savagely determined to overtake the girl. He was mounted on a larger, and evidently a fleeter, horse, for at every stride he came a shade closer.

“Is thet ther ceremony o’ ther fastest hoss, Buffler?” queried the startled Nomad. “Ef ther buck ketches ther gal, will she marry him? Hey?”

“That isn’t the ceremony of the fastest horse, Nick,” answered the scout. “The buck wouldn’t be shooting at the girl if it was.”

“Mebbyso he was jest shootin’ ter skeer her.”

“It’s not the right way to win a bride—or a Cheyenne bride. As near as I can make out, those two are Cheyennes.”

“Ther gal’s a Cheyenne, but at this distance I take ther buck fer a Ponca.”

“I reckon you’re right, Nick. The buck is a Ponca and the girl a Cheyenne. There’s a good deal of bad blood between the Cheyennes and the Poncas just now, and we can’t overlook the fact that the under dog, in this case, is a squaw. We’ll save her.”

“Shore we’ll save her!” averred Nomad. “I knowed ye’d be fer doin’ thet all along. We’re jest fixed right ter slide down this hill and sashay in between ther two.”

“That Ponca is getting ready to shoot again!” exclaimed Buffalo Bill, as he started his horse, Bear Paw, down the descent. “The next bullet may not go as wide as the first, and I reckon we’d better give the buck something to think about, so he’ll let the girl alone.”

As he charged down the slope, Buffalo Bill pulled his forty-five out of his belt and shook a load in the Ponca’s direction.

The range was too great for pistol-work, but the scout succeeded in his design of giving the buck “something to think about.”

The crack of the revolver and the “sing” of the bullet caused the buck to lower the rifle he had half-raised, and to turn his eyes in the direction of the white men. The girl also, for the first time, saw that help was near. She flung up one hand in a mute appeal.

“Don’t ye fret none, gal!” roared Nomad. “We’ll look out fer you!”

The girl, apparently taking courage from the shot fired in the buck’s direction, and from the reassuring tone of Nomad’s voice, slowed down her pony.

A few moments later the pards reached the foot of the ridge and laid their horses across the Ponca’s path. The Ponca, without speaking, tried to go around them. This was the girl’s signal to turn her pony and circle back until she was under the lee of Bear Paw.

“No, ye don’t, Injun!” cried the trapper, kicking in with his spurred heels and getting in front of the Ponca at a jump. “Mebbyso ye kin git eround me, but ye kain’t git eround this!” and Nomad leveled a revolver.

The Indian sat back on his horse and glared angrily at Nomad, at the scout, and at the girl.

“Me take um squaw,” grunted the Ponca. “Her b’long to Ponca.”

“She’s a Cheyenne,” said the scout. “How can a Cheyenne belong to a Ponca?”

“Me buy um squaw with ponies,” asserted the Indian. “Me take her from Cheyenne village, and she make um run. Ugh! Give Big Thunder squaw.”

“You bought this girl of the Cheyennes?” demanded the scout.

“Wuh! Pay um all same so many ponies.”

The Ponca held up five fingers.

Buffalo Bill looked at the girl attentively. He had never seen a prettier Indian girl. Her features were regular, and her large, liquid-black eyes gave her countenance almost a Spanish cast. Her garments were of buckskin, beaded and fringed, and her blanket was of a subdued color, clean and new. Broad silver bands encircled her forearms and her shapely wrists, and her hands were small and delicately formed.

The buck, on the other hand, was a rough-looking specimen of a Ponca.

“Speakin’ free an’ free, as between men an’ feller sports,” observed Nomad, “I kain’t blame ther gal none fer runnin’ erway.”

“Me know um Pa-c-has-ka,” said Big Thunder calmly. “Him friend of Poncas, and him got good heart. Him no let squaw get away from Ponca brave.”

“What is your name?” asked the scout of the girl.

“Wah-coo-tah,” was the answer.

“That’s a Sioux name.”

“Me Cheyenne, no Sioux. Name Wah-coo-tah.”

The girl had a rippling, musical voice, very different from the usually hard, strident voices of Indian women.

“Very well, Wah-coo-tah,” said the scout, “I’ll take your word for it. Why was the Ponca chasing you?”

“Me no like um.”

“Did your father sell you to the Ponca?”

“Ai. Me no like um, me run ’way. Him ketch Wah-coo-tah, then Wah-coo-tah kill herself.”

Here was a knotty point for the scout. Having bought the girl, by the girl’s own admission, the Ponca certainly had a right to take her for his squaw. But the scout could not justify himself in his own mind if he allowed the vicious-looking Ponca to take the fair Cheyenne.

“Where will you go, Wah-coo-tah, if you get away from the Ponca?”

“Me go where me be safe,” she said.

“How much time do you want to get away?”

The girl turned on her pony’s back and pointed to the top of a distant hill.

“So far,” she answered.

“All right. We’ll hang onto the Ponca until you get there.”

Before the scout could stop her, Wah-coo-tah caught his hand and pressed it to her lips. Then she turned her pony and galloped off.

Big Thunder sat silently on his horse for a space, his eyes glittering fiendishly. Suddenly he jerked his rifle to his shoulder. Nomad, watching him like a cat, struck up the barrel, and the bullet plunged skyward.

Quick as a catamount the Ponca dropped the weapon and hurled himself from his horse’s back—not at Nomad, but at Buffalo Bill. He had a drawn knife in his hand, and, as he landed on the scout’s horse, he made a venomous, whole-arm stab with it.

But if the Ponca was quick, the scout was a shade quicker. Twisting about in his saddle, Buffalo Bill clutched the Ponca’s knife-wrist with his right hand, and, with his left, took a firm grip of the Ponca’s throat.

A second later and the struggle carried them both to the ground.

Big Thunder was a powerful Indian, and the nude, upper-half of his wiry body was liberally besmeared with bear’s grease. The grease made him as slippery as an eel. Nevertheless, the scout knew how to deal with him.

A crushing pressure at the wrist caused the knife to drop. With the Ponca practically disarmed, the fight became one of mere wrestling and fisticuffs.

Big Thunder slipped his oily throat clear of the scout’s fingers, but the scout’s hand, leaping upward from the throat, took a firm grip of the scalp-lock. Holding the Ponca’s head to the ground, Buffalo Bill released his wrist, and got his right hand about the throat in such a manner that it could not slip; then, kneeling on the ground, he held the Ponca in that position until he was half-throttled.

“Waugh!” jubilated Nomad. “Jest see how Pard Buffler tames ther red savage. I’m darned ef et ain’t as good as a show. Goin’ ter strangle him, Buffler? Better do et. Ef ye don’t, he’ll camp on yore trail an’, sooner er later, ye’ll hev ter kill him ter prevent his takin’ yer scalp.”

The scout saw that the Indian had been punished enough for his attack, and suddenly sprang away from him.

“Don’t worry, pard,” sang out Nomad; “I’ve got him kivered.”

For a second or two the Ponca lay on the ground, gasping for breath; then, as he struggled to his feet, the point of the trapper’s revolver lifted with him, the trapper’s menacing eye gleaming along the barrel.

“Easy, thar, Ponk!” warned Nomad; “make er single hosstyle move, an’ ye’ll be er good Injun afore ye kin say Jack Robinson.”

Big Thunder, seeing how he was corralled, grunted savagely, drew himself to his full height, and folded his arms.

“Injun thought Pa-e-has-ka friend of Poncas!” he exclaimed scathingly.

“I’m the friend of the Poncas, all right, Big Thunder,” answered the scout, “but the girl did not want to go with you.”

“Ponca buy her, make um go!”

“Not while I’m around. Keep your hands off that girl, understand?”

“Ponca no keep hands off Pa-e-has-ka. Bymby, Pa-e-has-ka’s scalp dry in Big Thunder’s lodge; Big Thunder make um Cheyenne girl tie um scalp on hoop, hang um up.”

“Hyer ther pizen red!” snarled the trapper. “Hadn’t I better rattle this hyar pepper-box o’ mine at ther threatenin’ varmint?”

“No.” The scout looked in the direction taken by the girl. She had got far beyond the point to which she had drawn his attention, and had vanished. “I reckon Wah-coo-tah’s all right, Nick. Put up your gun and we’ll ride on to Sun Dance.”

Unconcernedly, the scout walked to Bear Paw and mounted.

Big Thunder, still erect and with his arms folded, followed the scout’s movements with eyes of hate.

“Come on, pard,” said the scout, starting for the next “rise.”

“Mebbyso he’ll open up on ye with thet rifle o’ his, Buffler,” demurred Nomad.

“He’ll not do that,” was Buffalo Bill’s confident reply, as he spurred on.

Nomad lowered his revolver, but kept his vigilant gaze on the Ponca as he followed his pard. When they crossed the next hill, the last they saw of Big Thunder he was still glaring after them.

“Ye’ve made er enemy out o’ thet red, Buffler,” observed the trapper, pushing his revolver back into its holster.

“I suppose so,” said the scout thoughtfully. “The worst of it is, Nick, I can’t blame the Indian. According to the laws and customs of the red man he is in the right. I had no business interfering between him and Wah-coo-tah.”

“Any white man would hev done et!” asserted the trapper.

“Any white man who had the right kind of a heart,” qualified the scout.

“Wah-coo-tah ain’t er common Injun squaw.”

“That’s why I helped her.”

“All this hyar,” commented Nomad, “on’y illustrates what I was er sayin’ erbout trouble. This excitement come around ther curve, full-tilt, an’ hit us squar’ in ther face. Thar wasn’t no dodgin’ et.”

Half an hour later the pards descended into Sun Dance Cañon, and an hour’s ride down the cañon brought them to the foot of the slope leading to the “flat,” and the mining-camp.

“We’re a good two hours ahead o’ Dell an’ Cayuse,” asserted Nomad, while they were climbing the slope.

“I hope we’re in time for Hickok’s business, whatever it is,” answered the scout.

Bije Spangler, as usual, was occupying a couple of chairs in front of the Lucky Strike. The ragged, palm-leaf fan was working slowly, and he watched the pards approach with a speculative eye. Spangler had no difficulty in detecting that they were persons of consequence.

“‘Lucky Strike Hotel,’” said the scout, reading from the sign. “Are you the proprietor?” he went on, dropping his eyes to the huge bulk of humanity in the two chairs.

“I run this joint,” wheezed Spangler, “but I ain’t high-toned enough ter call myself a proprietor.”

“Can we stop here?”

“Can if ye got the price.”

“We want a room by ourselves.”

“Only got one private room, an’ that was took by a feller that vamosed last night without settlin’ up. Reckon ye kin hev that, seein’ as I don’t know whether the feller’s ever comin’ back er not. J. Algernon Smith sorter opined he’d like a room by hisself, too, so I reckon he’d think he had fust claim on the room, on’y he vamosed as myster’ously as Wild Bill.”

“What’s that?” demanded the scout, pulling himself together with a jerk, and peering sharply into the flabby face of Spangler. “Was Wild Bill Hickok staying here?”

“He was.”

“And you say he left last night?”

“Him an’ J. Algernon went away tergether. That was right after supper last night, an’ neither of ’em has come back yet.”

“How long has Wild Bill been here?”

“He come day before yesterday, on hossback, with er Injun. J. Algernon come yesterday arternoon, on the Montegordo stage. Both of ’em’s skedaddled. Who might you be, neighbor?”

“Cody’s my name——”

Spangler tried to express his surprise and delight, but only succeeded in emitting a throaty gurgle; he likewise tried to get up and grab the scout’s hand, but his sudden flop displaced one of the chairs, and he slumped to the ground in a quivering heap.

Nomad got behind him and boosted him up.

“This hyar camp must be er healthy place,” remarked Nomad, “ef et grows many ombrays o’ yore size.”

“It ain’t as healthy as it looks,” said Spangler. “Buffalo Bill, I’m glad ter meet ye. Ye kin have this hull hotel if ye want it. I’ll call a man ter take keer o’ yer hosses.”

“I take care of my horse myself,” replied Buffalo Bill. “Show me the stable, Spangler.”

Spangler waddled to the corner of the house and pointed to a brush shelter in the rear.

“What d’ye think o’ this, Buffler?” asked the trapper perplexedly, as he and his pard led their mounts to the stable.

“I don’t know what to think of it yet,” answered the scout, with a troubled frown.

“Wild Bill was hyar, an’ vanished last night.”

“He vanished with a man called J. Algernon Smith. If we’re to believe Spangler, both Smith and Hickok departed unexpectedly. It looks bad, on the face of it, but——”

The rear of the stable was open. As the scout looked in, he saw and recognized Wild Bill’s horse.

“Et’s Wild Bill’s animile, shore enough,” muttered Nomad, following the scout’s eyes with his own. “Hickok wouldn’t pull out ter go any great distance without his hoss.”

“It wouldn’t seem so,” the scout answered, leading Bear Paw into an empty stall.

Removing the saddle, he rubbed Bear Paw down carefully with the saddle-blanket, then tore off a layer of hay from a bale, and loosened it out in the manger.

Nomad, deeply thoughtful, had been caring for his own horse in the same way.

Presently the pards left the stable and walked back to the front of the hotel.

Spangler was again seated on his chairs, plying the fan. He was talking with a man in a long linen duster.

“Buffalo Bill,” called Spangler, “shake hands with J. Algernon Smith, of Chicago. Smith,” went on Spangler, blowing like a porpoise, “this here is the Buffalo Bill ye read so much about.”

The scout’s eyes instantly engaged the face of J. Algernon Smith. Smith, after a moment’s hesitation, stretched out his hand.

The scout was an expert in character-reading, and, inasmuch as Smith was the last man seen with Wild Bill, he gave him keen attention.

“Well!” exclaimed Smith, “you’re the gentleman Wild Bill has been expecting. He told me about you.”