BUFFALO BILL’S HOLD-UP.
Matt Shepard bounced quickly into the room occupied by Wild Bill
Hickok, at the Eagle House.
“Excuse me!” he said. “But if what I hear is so, Tim Benson has got
out o’ the town!”
Wild Bill, who had been sitting comfortably by the window, came to
his feet with a jump.
“Do you reckon it’s so?” he asked.
“They say he took the stage; that _he_ was the man that was seen to
git on. It was only after the stage had pulled out, that Barney,
the stableboy, decided that the one man who went as a passenger was
Benson. Barney has got keen eyes, and I’m bettin’ his guess is the
truth. If so, Benson fooled me complete.”
Matt Shepard turned back to the door when he had delivered this.
“I thought I’d tell you,” he said. “I’m goin’ to git some men
together and shack right out after that stage. Benson has fooled me
so many times----”
“And may be fooling you now,” the man from Laramie reminded.
“You mean this guess of Barney’s may be wrong?”
“It’s just what I mean. Who else went in the stage?”
“Vera Bright.”
“Wow!”
“But I’m guaranteein’ that she didn’t know that the man who climbed
into the hearse with her was Benson.”
“Where is Miss Bright going?”
“On her way to ’Frisco, I heard. She’s had enough of the game here.
She told me only yisterday that she believed Benson had got out of
the country, and she was goin’ this morning.”
“It’s a queer thing, if they’re there together.”
“But just like Benson. Nobody can ever tell what he’ll do. He’s
sharper than tacks and slipperier than eels. But that stage is
humpin’ right along--Elmore is driving, and he makes things hum when
he’s on the box.”
“Yes, that’s so.”
Wild Bill came out of his room, following the sheriff, and locked the
door behind him.
“What you goin’ to do?” Shepard asked.
“I’m going to get word of this to Buffalo Bill as fast as I can.”
“Where is he?”
“Out on that very trail, and looking for Benson.”
“You follow the stage, as soon as you can get your men together! I’ll
shack out alone.”
Wild Bill went down the stairway to the lower floor three steps at a
jump; then ran out to the stable, at the rear of the hotel, where he
kept his riding horse.
Before the slower-moving sheriff was well out in the street, Wild
Bill had his horse ready, and was in the saddle.
He struck at once into the Calumet Wells stage trail, galloping out
of the town; but he did not stick to it long. The appearance of the
dust in the trail told him that the stage had passed that way not
long before.
“I’ll want to pass round the stage without Benson knowing it, if the
scoundrel is in it,” was his thought, “and so get word to Cody. It
will take some hot riding to do it, but I’ve got an animal here that
can go. Shepard is a slow mover; so he won’t get this far out within
an hour, if then; for he will want to get a lot of men together, with
horses, and that will take time. The stage will be at Stag Mountain
long enough before the sheriff can get anywhere near it. That would
be just the place for Cody, if I can get the word to him in time.”
So Wild Bill swung out of the trail, turning off to the right, and
rode at a swift gallop.
Occasionally, as he drove his horse on, he consulted his watch, and
looked at the rising peak of Stag Mountain, estimating the probable
time the stage would get to that point.
Having left the trail, he did not see the stage at all. But he came
abreast of Stag Mountain in a remarkably short time, and swung on
around it, keeping to the path he had chosen.
“If Cody suspects that Benson may try this trail, in an effort to get
out of the town, I’ll find him near the other end of the cañon,” was
his conclusion. “I’ll look for him there, at any rate.”
The man from Laramie, knowing of his pard’s plans, judged so
accurately that, when he came again into the stage trail, just beyond
the cañon, he saw first a rifle poked at him over the bushes, then
the head of old Nomad appear.
“Waugh!” the trapper bellowed at him. “I war jest on ther p’int o’
pumpin’ lead at ye. Better swing back on them reins. Buffler’s in
hyar.”
Buffalo Bill and the Baron rose out of the bushes and stepped into
the trail, where Wild Bill had brought his panting horse to a halt.
“News!” said the man from Laramie.
“I cal’lated et, soon’s I seen ’twas you!” said Nomad.
“Tim Benson is coming in the stage, so I was told. Shepard gave me
the word; and though it is just a guess, I straddled my animal and
brought it to you.”
“And the stage is due here at almost any minute,” was Buffalo Bill’s
comment.
“Yes, I reckon it is. I rode like the devil was after me, for I was
bound to git here first. Shepard is to follow it with a posse; but
it’ll take him half a day, likely, to turn round a few times and get
under way.”
“Uff idt iss drue,” said the baron, “I gan see some bromise of a varm
dimes goming. Dot Penson iss a fighdter.”
“Anybody with him?” the scout asked.
“Yes--and it’s a funny thing! Vera Bright is in the same stage.”
“Waugh!” Nomad whooped. “Thet actress woman. But she’s his inemy.”
“As I understand it, she didn’t know he was to go, and perhaps
didn’t recognize him; he’s got a wonderful way of changing his
appearance--never saw anything like it. The only thing I’m afraid of
is that a mistake has been made, and he ain’t in the stage with her
at all. She went; that’s sure. And a man went--a small man, about the
size of Benson; one of the stableboys says he knows it _was_ Benson.
Now you know all I do.”
“Budt ve vill haf to do some mofing kvick,” averred the baron. “You
vill pe hearing dot stage in apowet fife minudes.”
“You’ll have to look out for Benson’s revolvers,” the man from
Laramie warned. “He’s quick with the trigger, and he will shoot if
cornered. We’ve got to get the drop on him.”
Buffalo Bill took charge of the situation, and led his friends at a
run toward the cañon, which lay like a black gulf on the southern
side of the low peak called Stag Mountain.
Through the cañon the trail ran, and because the cañon was dark, with
bushes growing on each side, it had for many months been a favorite
place for hold-ups. Benson had used it in that way a number of times
himself.
Hardly had the scout and his friends got into position in the bushes
in the cañon when the rumble of wheels announced the approach of the
stage.
They soon afterward heard the snapping of Elmore’s long whip, and
the voice of the driver. He was singing, to give himself and his
passengers assurance. Elmore always got nervous when he came to that
spot. Though he had been in a score of hold-ups and never injured, he
expected that each would be his last. If there had been another way
for the stage, he would have taken it. There was a bridle path, which
Wild Bill had followed; but though it was wide enough for a horse,
the stage could not get through it.
Elmore’s bellowing voice was wafted ahead of him into the dark-walled
confines of the cañon:
“The red-headed man from Santy Fe,
Held aces four, an’ then some more;
He got my wealth away frum me,
An’ I am sore--I’m mighty sore!”
The stage came in sight, lurching down into the cañon. Elmore swung
his whip, making it crack like a pistol.
“G’lang!” they heard him yell. “Git through this hyar brimstone hole,
fast as ye can. Whoop! Wow! Go on, there!”
Hank Elmore, thinking he was through, or nearly so, and safe, broke
out in song again.
But suddenly his singing changed to a howl, his foot was jammed
automatically against the heavy brake, and he pulled back on the
lines.
“Whoa!” he yelled.
Out of the bushes on each side weapons had appeared, making him think
that it was another road-agent hold-up; though in an instant he saw
that the men were Wild Bill, Buffalo Bill, old Nomad, and Baron von
Schnitzenhauser.
“What in the name o’ Sam Hill!” he yelled, in his amazement, as he
recognized them. “Gents, this is----”
“Just keep your seat and steady your horse,” Buffalo Bill shot at
him. “We won’t trouble _you_. The man we are after is in the stage.”
“Wow!” said Elmore. “Is that so? What’s _he_ been up to?”
“If we aren’t mistaken, you’re pulling Benson along in your old
hearse to-day,” the scout told him.
Elmore came near falling out of his seat.
“Bub-Benson! But--say, it cain’t be. Bub-Benson ain’t----”
Buffalo Bill advanced on the stage, a revolver in each hand, paying
no further heed to the stage driver.
“We think you’re in there, Benson!” he called out. “So you might as
well step right out and surrender. We know you’re a big little man,
and a mighty good pistol shot; but there are four of us here, and we
can do some shooting, too. So, even if you downed one or two of us
you couldn’t get away. And it would go mighty hard with you. Better
come right out like a little man and surrender.”
But there was no reply to this.
“Hold your revolvers on the stage doors,” the scout commanded. “If
Benson jumps out and tries to get away, down him. He has given us
enough trouble.”
He stepped to the door of the stage on his side, and boldly drew it
open with his left hand, holding a revolver in his right.
“You might as well come out, Benson. There is a woman in there. Miss
Vera Bright; but, of course, she knows that we mean no harm to her.
We’re after Tim Benson.”
There was a rustling sound; then a woman--or what they took, in the
rather dim light, to be a woman--came out of the stage, carrying a
hand bag.
“You--you sc-scared me so!”
“No harm will be done you, Miss Bright,” said the scout. “But there
is a man in here; and we want him.”
The scout put his head in at the stage door, and saw a form lying
back amid the cushions.
“Hello!” he said. “What is this!”
The next moment he had leaped into the stage, after calling on his
friends to keep a close watch.
A woman lay unconscious against the cushions of the coach, the scout
saw at once.
He stooped over her, the light not so good that he could see her
face clearly; but a feeling that something was wrong came to him.
“Stop that woman outside!” he yelled.
He turned to get out of the stage.
At the same instant Nomad yelled something.
“Stop her!” Buffalo Bill shouted.
Nomad began to run after the supposed woman.
“She is hikin’, Cody,” he announced.
“Then shoot her! For that woman must be Tim Benson!”
The trapper’s revolver roared the next moment.
“Waugh!” he howled. “She’s gittin’ away, Buffler!”
The scout flung himself out of the stage.
All he saw at that first look was the skirts of the supposed man, as
they whipped out of sight behind a rock, and Nomad lunging in that
direction.
“I’m afraid we’re tricked,” said the scout to Wild Bill and the
baron. “But you stay right here; some woman is in the stage, or else
Benson. We will know directly.”
Then he sprinted after Nomad.
The disguised man was out of sight, amid the rocks that lined the
cañon, by the time the scout and the trapper reached the spot where
last they had seen him.
“Waugh!” Nomad roared, staring around. “Was et a man, er a woman?
Anyway, ther critter hes kited.”
The scout ran on, looking about, hand on ready revolver, prepared to
shoot, and expecting to be shot at. The rocky sides of the cañon were
bush-grown, and there were little crevices and cracks making off from
it on the right and left. These were dark, and made darker by the
bushes. The outlaw had all the advantage. He could lie hidden; and
when he felt safe, he could climb softly up the broken and ragged
cañon wall, or sneak away along the rifts. Twenty men would hardly
have been enough to make a prompt and thorough exploration of the
many hiding places.
Buffalo Bill turned back, meeting Nomad, who had been following.
“Er clean giterway!” the trapper howled.
“It looks it, Nomad. But we’ll go back to the stage and see what we
have there.”
Instead of answering, Nomad whirled as if on a pivot, swinging his
revolver round, and sent a shot plunging and roaring into one of the
side gorges. At the same time he followed the shot by rushing into
the place.
“Did you see him?” Buffalo Bill called, following the trapper.
“I heared him--er her!”
But the sound did not come again.
What was heard next was a plunging of the stage horses, then the
bounding and rattling of the stage, accompanied by a roar from Hank
Elmore, commanding the horses to stop.
“I reckon ther hosses hez tuck et inter their heads ter make a break,
too,” commented the trapper.
He and Buffalo Bill rushed into the gorge, searching for the author
of the sound they had heard. But they unearthed nothing, and by and
by came out.
“We might’s well give et up, Buffler,” the trapper admitted ruefully.
He was in a fuming rage. “This is tough luck. Whoever thet was made a
clean giterway. Looks like er trick o’ Benson’s.”
Hastening back to the spot where Wild Bill and the German had been
left with the stage, they found the stage gone, and those who had
been with it.
“This is a beastly mess!” Nomad whooped. “Even so big a thing as a
stagecoach slips right through our fingers. But I reckon thet Wild
Bill an’ ther baron aire chasin’ arter et.”
They followed, also, hurrying at a run along the trail.
When they came out of the cañon they saw the stage and horses a
quarter of a mile away. The German and Wild Bill had apparently
overtaken the stage, and then had turned back, for they were coming
toward the cañon. The stage driver, after wrapping the lines round a
tree by the trail, came also toward the cañon, hastening to overtake
the man from Laramie.
“Might’s well wait fer ’em ter git hyer,” suggested Nomad. “I’m plum
winded. But ef we war follerin’ Benson, ther kyote got away.”
“I believe it was Benson, in spite of the woman’s clothing.
Circumstances suggest it.”
“And Wild Bill said thet et war him.”
When Wild Bill came near he swung his hat and whooped:
“Did he get away?” he demanded.
“Plum made ther through trip,” Nomad answered, his face an angry red.
“Was it a woman who was left in the stage?” the scout asked.
“It was Vera Bright.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“There’s no doubt whatever, pard. We brought her round, and she
talked with us. She’s in the stage yet, but weak; we left her there
and come hoppin’ back, judgin’ that you was needin’ help. She told
us that Benson had taken her hand bag, got clothing and other things
out of it, and made a change in his looks, while he was in the stage
with her; and that she was too frightened to make an outcry. He said
to her, too, that he was expecting you to appear, and that he would
fool you, and get away.”
“Et’s what he has done, ther ornery skunk!” cried Nomad. “But et’s
jest like Benson.”
“He iss like der flea,” put in the baron; “vhen you haf got him, you
gan loogk vor him at some odder blaces alreadty.”
“He’s certain a mighty smart un,” commented the stage driver. “I was
tur’ble oneasy as I driv up ter ther cañon, but I’d ’a’ been throwin’
fits ef I had guessed thet Benson was the little gent ridin’ in my
hearse.”
“Benson knew that the town and the trails were watched and covered,
so he had to make use of some scheme to get out at all; and, of
course, he wanted to get out,” said the scout. “I wonder where he
will go now?”
“Could we trail him?” asked the man from Laramie.
“That’s to be settled, after we try it.”
“Then you mean to try it?”
“I certainly shall do everything to keep him from getting out of the
country. After he leaves this rocky section and puts his foot on
softer ground he has got to make a trail, and I see no reason why we
can’t find it and follow him. It will take time; but if no rain comes
to wash out his tracks, we can do it.”
“No rain in sight now,” said Nomad. “Et don’t rain down in this
kentry enough ter make a man reckle’t what a good rain seems like.”
A sound came from the direction of the horses, that the stage driver
had tied to the tree.
“Wow!” he howled. “They’ve broke that hitchin’ strap, and thar they
go, cuss ’em!”
The horses had broken away from the tree, and were going down the
trail at a tearing gait, dragging the stagecoach, which swayed and
bounced on the rough places, as if it would go over.
The excited stage driver started after them on foot, as if he thought
he could overtake them in that way.
“No use to run your lungs out in that style, Elmore,” the man from
Laramie called out to him. “Our horses are right here. You can
straddle the back of one of ’em, with the reg’lar rider, and get
there a heap quicker.”
The scout and his pards hurried to get up their horses, which were
hidden out in the scrub.
But by the time they had done this the stage had bobbed out of sight.
By and by they even ceased to hear it; though, before the sounds of
its flight ceased, a crashing sound reached them, much as if the
stage had been overturned.
“That girl is shore gittin’ a run fer her money,” observed Nomad;
“thet is, ef she likes fast goin’ in an ole stagecoach. I’m hopin’
she ain’t hurted none whatever.”
They were quickly galloping along the trail after the stage.
When they came in sight of it they saw what had happened. Scared by
shadows at one side of the way, the horses had swung out of the plain
road, then had vainly tried to get past, a big bowlder by going one
on each side of it; the result of which was that the pole of the
stage had struck the rock, breaking the pole, bringing the horses to
a violent stop, and tumbling the stage over on its side. In addition,
the horses had snarled themselves in their harness with a perfection
that rendered them helpless.
Hank Elmore was aghast when he beheld the damage.
“I wonder what et done fer ther woman?” was Nomad’s query. “I don’t
see her stirrin’ round, and ef she ain’t eternally smashed, I sh’d
think thet she’d git outer ther ole hearse.”
“I am guessing,” said the baron, “dot she iss inkinscious ag’in.”
“Repetition of a thing creates a habit,” said the man from Laramie,
with a laugh on his lips. “I’m hoping it won’t be so in her case; as
unconsciousness would be a bad habit to cultivate.”
They galloped up to the stage and the tangled horses. But when they
had done so and looked into the vehicle, they were struck with
amazement.
_The woman was not in the stage!_
“Wow! What’s ther meanin’ of et?” Nomad whooped.
“Uff she had peen sbilt oudt alongk der vay ve musdt haf seen her,”
said the German.
“That cushion has fallen, and maybe she is crumpled up under it,”
Buffalo Bill suggested.
But she was not under the cushion; nor was she in the stage at all.
Hank Elmore, fuming and growling, was trying to get his horses
untangled.
“This trip puts ther kibosh on any I ever took,” he growled. “I have
been through hold-ups a-plenty, but this is wuss than any of ’em,
fer me. One o’ you fellers that’s got a sharp knife lend a hand
yere; this hawse has twisted ’leventeen bowknots o’ leather round his
forrud laigs, and I cain’t untie none of ’em; we’ve got ter do some
knife work, I reckon.”
Wild Bill sprang to his aid, and the recalcitrant harness was hacked
away.
After making certain that the woman was not in or near the stage,
the scout requested Nomad and the baron to look for trails near by,
then turned about and retraced his way, leaning over from the saddle,
searching carefully.
A whoop from Nomad stopped the scout and brought him back.
“I’ve found tracks,” said the trapper, “but they ain’t hers; look
like a grizzly b’ar’s; but thet cain’t be, fer a grizzly don’t w’ar
shoes.”
The scout flung himself out of the saddle; and, leaving Bear Paw
standing in the trail, he hurried over to the spot occupied by the
baron and Nomad. Wild Bill and Hank Elmore were still unsnarling the
stage horses.
The trapper pointed solemnly to some tracks that he and the baron had
found.
“Erbout big ernough fer a grizzly,” said Nomad, “an’ ther feller thet
made ’em shore shuffled along jest like a b’ar; yit I reckon ’et
war a man, ’count o’ ther shoes. I never yit heerd thet b’ars war
addicted ter ther shoe habit.”
The tracks were large, showing they had been made by shoes of the
biggest size. As the trapper stated, the wearer had progressed with
a shuffling movement, as was to be told by the fact that where the
ground was soft the tracks were long-drawn, indicating that the feet
had slid along, instead of being well lifted.
“Der kvestion vot me unt Nomat haf peen asking,” said the baron,
“iss, Dit he haf der vomans?”
“We couldn’t tell, Buffler; fer, ye see, though them tracks sink
purty deep, it may be bercause ther feller was a purty good weight
hisself; ther size o’ them feet indercates a big man.”
“We’ll see if we can pick up the trail of the woman,” said the scout.
“That is, if she left the stage at this point, and not before it
reached here. It seems to me, though, that she could not have got out
of the stage, the way it was tearing along, until it made its stop
right here.”
“What would she want ter leave it fer?” asked Nomad.
“She iss Vera Bright,” said the baron.
“By which the baron means, I judge,” the scout explained, “that she
has been little better at times than a comrade and friend of outlaws,
and perhaps is not to be trusted to do the honest thing in this case.”
“Vot I am t’inking iss dot perhabs she ditn’t vant to seen you, Cody.
She might haf a reasons.”
The scout was searching for tracks of the woman.
Soon he found them--off on the right; small tracks, going in the same
direction of the large ones.
“Now, which were made first,” he asked, “the woman’s, or the tracks
of the big feet? You can see that both are fresh.”
“Idt gidts me,” the baron confessed.
“Likewise, hyer,” said Nomad. “Was she follerin’ ther man, er was he
follerin’ her; er was they travelin’ independent? Ther only way ter
find out is ter overtake ’em, I reckon.”
The horses had been released from the tangled harness, and the
disgusted stage driver was tying them to some trees. Wild Bill walked
over to the place where Buffalo Bill and his pards were discussing
the trails.
“I’ve been hearing your talk,” he said. “And I judge you’re up in the
air.”
The scout admitted it.
“What you going to do?”
“Follow these trails, and see what became of the woman first. Then
try to pick up the trail left by Tim Benson. I suppose there is no
doubt the fellow was Benson?”
“Miss Vera Bright declared he was Benson.”
“Budt can she pe trusdted?” asked Schnitzenhauser.
“I think so, in that,” Wild Bill told him. “She was scared, and she
seemed to be speaking the truth. Yet I can’t understand why she left
the stage here, unless the jolt she got when the stage hit that rock
unsettled her mind a bit.”
Buffalo Bill followed along the trail of the woman.
“It’s a thing we’ve got to find out,” he said.