SKULL AND CROSSBONES.
The current decreased when they entered this wide valley. The cañon had
disappeared beyond the tunnel, and here were only broken hills and sandy
river banks inclosing the stream. At points along the stream were trees
and bushes.
When they were nearly a mile out from the tunnel, and the current had
dropped to no more than seven or eight miles an hour, they beheld in
front of them a low, bush-grown island. Then, looking off to the right,
where the stream made a bend beyond the island, they were astonished to
behold houses amid the trees on the river bank. They seemed to be large
cabins, and their presence denoted human occupancy.
“That letther wasn’t a lie at all!” Flynn repeated, when he saw those
houses.
“And if what it said is true, that Red Reynard is in here with a lot of
his villains, we’ll be a good deal better off if they don’t see us,” the
scout remarked, as he turned the prow of the canoe toward the shore,
which presented a sandy bluff at that point.
“We’ll get under that bluff,” he said, “where we’re not so likely to be
sighted by whoever occupies those cabins, and then, I think, we’d better
try to land on that island, and go into hiding there until we see who is
in this valley.”
The eyes of Cudjo were round and staring. When he turned them from the
cabins to the surface of the river he uttered an ejaculation of fear.
“Marse Cody, dar it is!” he said in a whisper. “Dar’s dat alligator. He
riz right plum’ up f’um de bottom of de river. Yo’ see ’im, doan’ you?”
They could not but see the scaly saurian, as it floated on the surface
of the water. Apparently, it had not seen them. At the small bend just
below the saurian turned across the stream, heading as if for the
island.
“Hit look des lack it’s leadin’ de way, and sayin’ for us to come on!”
whispered Cudjo, his eyes staring. “Marse Cody, I doan’ lack de
appearance ob dat, does you? Looks as if he’s leadin’ us on. I reckon
mebbe he’s livin’ over dar.”
The canoe, turning at that bend, for the high bluff ended there, was
following in the wake of the big saurian. They saw it reach the low
shore of the island, where it sank from sight, and did not rise again.
This crossing of the river in the broad light of day was a ticklish
thing, and the scout kept his eyes trained as much as possible on the
river banks below, and on those cabins. He was anxious not to be seen.
They made their landing at almost the spot where the big saurian had
disappeared. Stepping ashore there, they drew out the canoe, then took
the load out of it, and carried it back into the bushes. They did not
believe they had been observed.
As for the “alligator,” Cudjo was the only one who feared it, and
because he feared it he kept well back from the water.
The island consisted of several acres of bush-grown land lying in the
middle of the river, which here widened out into a sluggish stream, so
different from its hitherto known characteristics.
Having concealed the canoe and their belongings, Buffalo Bill and his
companions made their way quietly through the brushy ground to the other
side of the island.
They beheld now an astonishing sight. Instead of the few cabins, which
they had supposed were the only ones, they beheld a village.
The cabins were ranged along the right bank of the river, in the midst
of trees, less than a mile below the flat island. Between the houses ran
a single wide street, which paralleled the course of the river. Men were
seen walking in this street, and down by the river other men were seen
working, as if they searched for gold, or were washing it.
Buffalo Bill brought out his binoculars and covered the houses and the
men with them. The houses were big log cabins, though some of them
seemed to have additions constructed of mud and stone.
“That letther wasn’t anny lie at all, at all!” said Mike Flynn,
repeating what he had said so many times before.
“It looks as if it were true; and if so, then Red Reynard, the Fox, has
his lair right here before us. Take a look, Flynn.”
Michael surveyed the cabins and the men carefully and long.
“Begorra, it’s too bad they ain’t honest min!” he said. “We could walk
out and jine thim, av they were. But I’m guessin’ it wouldn’t be wise to
thry it.”
“Anything but wise, Flynn. We’ve got to find out what all this means,
before we venture to show ourselves.”
“I’d like to know now, so I would, if Klamath John is dead or livin’,
and what he mint by what he did. Troth, so I would! It’s that quare I
can’t make annything out av it. What do yez think av it, Cody?”
He returned the glasses, and the scout gave them to Cudjo, asking him to
take a look and report whatever he saw. Cudjo, after a few moments’
survey, began to search the river with the binoculars.
“Marse Cody, did dat ’gator go on downstream?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Well, I ’clar to goodness I fink he’s comin’ back! I sho’ seen somepin’
down dar looked lack his haid stickin’ up.”
Buffalo Bill and Flynn, not being greatly interested in the “alligator,”
continued to speculate concerning the houses and the men.
“If dem men finds us heah, Marse Cody, we’s gwine see int’restin’
times,” Cudjo prophesied.
“An’ that ain’t anny lie!” said Flynn.
“Yes,” assented the scout, “we’ll have to be careful. But I don’t think
they come often to this island. There are signs that they’ve been here,
but not for several days.”
He pointed to some marks on the sandy shore just below, where digging
had been done in the sand. When they looked closely they beheld tracks
of human feet.
“Marse Cody, how is we gwine tuh git out o’ dis place?” said Cudjo.
“I don’t know. That’s to be found out. We’re safe for the present. And
we’ve plenty to eat. But we’ll have to eat it without cooking, for the
smoke of a fire would certainly attract attention.”
For a long time the scout and his companions stared out from the shelter
of the bushes, watching the village, and the men they saw moving about.
As the scout was making a final survey of the cabins with his
binoculars, he turned them on the open door of a cabin, hoping to see
the interior. What the glasses brought into view above the door was
startling and suggestive.
“A skull and crossbones, and not a mere representation of them!” was his
thought. “Flynn,” he said, “take the glasses, and tell me what you see
just over the door of that cabin.”
Flynn took the binoculars and trained them on the cabin door.
“I hope I’m not dr’amin’,” he said, “but if that ain’t a skull, and if
thim ain’t the thigh bones av a man crossed under it, thin I am dr’amin’
or cr-razy. What does it mane, begorra?”
Cudjo clutched the glasses and looked through them.
“Marse Cody, you ’members dem stick pins? It’s des lack um, ober dat
door.”
The scout and Flynn had thought of the stick pins even before Cudjo thus
spoke of them.
“The skull and crossbones!” said Buffalo Bill. “If Klamath John found
the stick pins with that letter written by Red Reynard, the Fox, it’s
easy enough to connect the skull and crossbones on the stick pins with
those over that door.”
“It begins to luk as though that felly wasn’t lyin’ whin he towlt yez
how he found the letther,” said Flynn seriously.
“But you mustn’t forget that he went to the very depths of deception
when he disguised himself with that wig and whiskers,” was the scout’s
comment. “There is something very singular about it all.”
“Shure, it’s too quare f’r words.”
The discovery of the skull and crossbones above the cabin door threw
Cudjo into a new flutter of fear. He had never been able to forget the
outlaw wearing a stick pin of that kind, who had knocked him down at the
time of the railway holdup. Apparently members of that same band of
desperadoes occupied the cabins here in the Golconda Cup.
“I wonder if they’re washin’ f’r gold?” said Flynn, once more studying
the figures by the stream. “It’s gold I’m wantin’—gobs av it; an’ it
makes me fingers itch to think that anny man can be takin’ it out that
way, right befure me eyes, wid me here wantin’ my share, and that
hilpless I can’t poke me nose out av the bushes. Musha! But it’s the
loikes av that makes the hear-rt ache.”
Buffalo Bill brought out the stick pins he had kept in his possession,
and looked at them. Their suggestiveness, in connection with that
gruesome sign over the door of the cabin, and the letter written by Red
Reynard, was impressive.
“Fr’m the looks av the cabins—the number av thim, I mane—the min huntin’
gold down here ar-re too manny f’r us,” said Flynn. “It was the gold and
the iligant advinture that brought me. We’ve had the advinture, and I’m
not denyin’ it was thrillin’ enough; and now we want the gold. How we’re
to git it, though, I dunnaw. Thim divils have camped on the claim, and
if we secure anny gold I’m thinkin’ we’ll have to crack heads f’r it.”
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