Читать книгу Buffalo Bill's Best Bet; Or, A Sure Thing Well Won - Ingraham Prentiss - Страница 15

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The day for the train to start on its long western trail rolled around, and all was bustle and confusion in and around Border City. Russell, Majors & Waddell were sending out a larger bull outfit, as it was called, than usual, and a quantity of beef cattle for the Western forts were to be driven along in company with it.

Ben Tabor had been appointed chief herdsman, and, with his men, was very busy getting the cattle together. Buffalo Bill was to accompany the men, intending, when the train struck the South Platte, to branch off to Julesburg, from which place he was to continue his journey alone.

A short while before the train pulled out from its encampment, the stage from the East rolled up to the tavern, and the driver, Bob Briggs, sung out in his cheery way:

“On time, landlord, fer ther western-bound train?”

“Yes, just in time, Bob; you have driven hard, and are ahead of time.”

“Yas, always clever to obleege calicos and preachers, fer I hes some bound West. ’Light, parson, fer our journey hes ended right heur, an’ ef yer were a ginslinger, I’d ax yer in ter take a drink, out o’ thanks fer yer pra’ers fer me, an’ ther sweet voice o’ yer darty, though I hasn’t seen her face.”

Then Bob Briggs sprang nimbly from his box and assisted down an elderly gentleman, with smooth face, long white hair, gold spectacles, a suit of clerical black, and high hat with a band of deepest mourning surrounding it.

Behind this pious-looking individual came a young girl with a wealth of golden hair peeping out from beneath her nunlike headdress and heavy black veil.

“This are Parson Uriah Bristow, landlord, and his darty, whom he calls Rebecca. They is goin’ West as missionaries ter convart ther red heathen from ther bernightedness. So fill ’em with provender, fer we didn’t stop fer breakfast. Then hunt ther parson up a hearse o’ some kind ter travel West with, fer he’s got ther dust ter pay fer it.”

Turning to the clerical individual, Bob added in a low tone:

“Won’t you hev a drink, parson, jist fer yer stomick’s sake, an’ good-fellowship?”

“No; I never drink; it becometh not my cloth,” answered Uriah Bristow in a sepulchral tone.

“Never rastle tanglefoot? Why, pard, yer doesn’t know what is healthy. Then hev a smoke?”

“I never use the intoxicating and damning weed.”

“Ther dickens! What do yer do, pard, ter make yer cheerful?”

“I am never cheerful.”

“You look it. There, landlord, lead him in to ther hash bar. I’ll bet he kin git away with viands, or he ain’t like ther parsons as uster come ter my old mammy’s home when I were a kid. Jerusha; ther chickens uster skip, ther sheeps bleat, ther turkeys gobble, an’ pigs squeal whenever they saw ’em comin’, fer they knowed thar was ter be eatin’ done.”

The landlord came to the rescue and led the doleful preacher and his deeply veiled daughter into the house; which they left an hour after in an ambulance, drawn by two large mules, to follow the western-bound train.

Behind the ambulance were hitched two splendid horses, which the parson had purchased for himself and daughter, to enable them to vary the long ride by horseback exercise, and in the vehicle were many little things to add to their comfort. To the captain of the train, Lew Simpson, Parson Bristow brought a letter of introduction from the general in command of that department.

The letter asked that every courtesy be shown the minister and his daughter, who were going West as missionaries to teach the Indians at the agencies. For several days the train wended its way westward, making slow marches on account of its size and the large number of cattle along.

At night, when gathered around the camp fires, the train people tried to draw the dismal-looking parson and his veiled daughter into their enjoyment. The girl pleaded illness, and the parson said he never indulged in light amusement, and besought them to prayer and psalm singing.

This course naturally caused the cheerful members of the outfit to leave the parson and his daughter severely alone, a circumstance with which they seemed to be pleased. Each day the daughter, whom persons at first thought to be shamming, grew more indisposed, until at last she was unable to leave her ambulance, and her condition excited the sympathy of all.

Like a tender, loving nurse her father hung over her, riding in the ambulance, supporting her head through the long day’s march, and attentive to her every want. Touched by the suffering of the girl, several of the emigrants’ wives and daughters offered their services; but the father said he alone would care for her, and she seemed unhappy if he was out of her sight for an instant.

At last, one beautiful moonlight night, when a hush had fallen on the train encampment, the spirit of the young girl took its flight.

The wails of the stricken old man were pitiful to hear. Two of the women of the train dressed her for her grave, a shroud of blankets encircled the fair form, and in a snowy bank, by the edge of a crystal creek, her grave was dug and the body was placed in it just as the sun arose above the prairie horizon.

“Do not hide her from my sight; I will fill the grave myself; leave me, my kind friends, leave me, and ere long I will follow you,” said the parson.

One by one the people departed, the train pulled out of camp, the last wagon disappeared over a rise in the prairie, and the voices of the cattle drivers grew fainter and fainter in the distance. Still the old man stood, his hands resting on the spade, which had been left with him.

His dead daughter lay in the shallow grave, enveloped in the blanket shroud, and her face veiled as she had worn it in life. A short distance away stood his horse, and no sound broke the silence after the shouts of the cattle drivers had died away.

At length he went to work and shoveled the earth into the grave with a strength and quickness one would not have looked for in a man of his age.

Casting the spade aside, he mounted his horse and rode down the stream instead of following the trail of the train. His thoughts seemed far away, his head was bent, and he seemed unmindful in his grief which way his horse was taking him, or that he had been warned of Indians lurking in the vicinity.

Hardly had he gone from sight before a horseman appeared through the timber from the opposite side. At a glance he was recognized as Buffalo Bill, mounted upon his faithful horse Midnight.

As though with a set object in view, he dismounted, and his eye falling upon the spade, he began to throw out the loose earth from the newly made grave. Diligently he worked, using great care as he dug nearer and nearer to the body, and so intent upon his work as to be oblivious to all else.

At length the spade touched the blanket, and his hands were then used to scrape off the dirt until the veil was visible. Tenderly he drew it aside and gazed upon the face of the dead. The eyes were closed, the hair was blond, not black, but it was a face he knew well. From his lips broke the cry:

“It is Panther Kate.”

“Yes, it is Panther Kate, and I am Kent King, the Gambler Guide!”

Buffalo Bill started, and glanced up, to realize that he was trapped. His belt of arms lay some feet distant, and he gazed into the face of Parson Bristow, but the spectacles, shoved up on the forehead, displayed the vicious eyes of Kent King.