SAVED FROM DEATH.
In a position from which all parts of the rocky basin could be seen,
Buffalo Bill assembled his men and unfolded his program.
“Holmes will not stay all night among the rocks down there,” he said.
“He may start on before dark, though my opinion is that he won’t unless
he should see us coming down the hill toward him. He is probably facing
the hill now, on the watch for us. As he will not get a glimpse of us
during daylight, he will conclude that we have not been able to make
fast time in the pursuit.”
“I wish the darkness would hurry up and come,” said Carl Henson, in
fierce impatience. “I am worried about Miss Wilton.”
“She is in no present danger,” replied the scout.
The sun was setting. Its rays illuminated and brought into bold relief a
long peak that stood at the farther end of the basin. The peak was built
of many-colored rocks laid in belts, and the effect was grandly
beautiful.
On one side of the peak ran the trail that led out of the basin.
In an hour the peak and the hollow at its base would be wrapped in
darkness.
“That peak seems to interest you, Cody,” said Wild Bill.
“It does, Hickok, for there I feel that the wind-up will take place.”
“Then you don’t intend that Holmes shall sneak out of the basin.”
“You have said it.”
“I get the idea. The retreat by the peak must be cut off.”
“Yes. The basin can be circled. There’ll be some tough climbing to do,
but——”
“But a man of my build can easily do the trick. Good! That suits me down
to the ground. Wish I could start now. By gum”—looking along the
irregular wall of the basin—“I can start in daylight. The rocks offer
all kinds of opportunities for concealment. What do you say, Cody?
Hadn’t I better get a move on right now?”
Buffalo Bill did not answer at once. His eyes were on the spot where
Rixton Holmes and Myra Wilton were resting. He saw the villain arise,
take the girl by the arm and point to the ponies.
“They are going to move,” he said, in some excitement. Then to Wild
Bill: “Yes, you may go. You’ll have to travel fast if you expect to get
to the peak before they come up.”
“Trust me,” was the quiet reply, and Wild Bill was off.
Carl Henson was so excited that he would have rushed down the hill in
spite of his promise to obey Buffalo Bill’s orders, if Bart Angell had
not caught him by the arm and held him back. “Keep cool, sonny,” was the
big backwoodsman’s admonition. “You’ll shore hev a chance ter take part
in ther circus, but you got ter remember that Buffalo Bill aire ther
ringmaster.”
The king of scouts, still watching the scene in the basin, was both
relieved and delighted to observe that Holmes was having trouble with
his captive. Myra Wilton had refused to mount her pony. An angry
discussion was evidently taking place.
Meanwhile, Wild Bill, active as a cat and with the cunning and
discretion that had so many times stood him in good stead, was making
quick time toward the trail beyond the peak.
Once Myra Wilton turned and looked toward the spot where Buffalo Bill
and his two companions were concealed. Did she know they were there?
The king of scouts was in doubt on this point, but the inference was
that Holmes believed that she suspected help was near, for, while she
was looking at the point of concealment, the villain caught her around
the waist, lifted her from the ground, and, despite her struggles, began
to carry her in the direction of the peak.
“Come on, boys,” said Buffalo Bill, as he leaped to his feet. “My slate
is smashed. It’s now a case of get there.”
When they reached the basin, Holmes and the girl were out of sight. The
huge rocks of the hollow hid them.
But as the objective point of the alarmed and desperate villain must be
the peak trail, the king of scouts pressed forward, running as he never
had run before.
He outstripped his companions, and was in an open space that permitted a
view of the base of the peak when he stopped in amazement.
Rixton Holmes was ascending the peak. Assisted by the rocky rings, he
had reached a point over fifty feet from the base. His strength must
have been prodigious, for he still held the girl in his arms.
She was making no movement, and the king of scouts believed that she had
fainted. Had he known that the brutal villain had choked her into
unconsciousness, his rage might have overlapped his judgment.
Holmes saw Buffalo Bill, and stopped to draw a knife from his belt.
“Shoot, if you will,” he shouted hoarsely, “and I will drive this knife
into Myra Wilton’s heart.”
“You coward,” yelled Carl Henson, who had come up and was beside himself
with rage and anguish. “Come down here and have it out with me.”
Holmes laughed hoarsely. “I’m playing a safe hand,” he yelled.
“What do ye expect ter gain by this monkey business?” demanded Bart
Angell, who had his rifle pointed at the villain’s head and was waiting
for a chance to fire. If the girl’s head had not rested against the
villain’s cheek he would have fired, anyhow. “I’m not likely ter miss,
but it won’t do ter take chances,” he said sourly to himself.
“Gain?” repeated Holmes. “Satisfaction, that’s all.” His eyes were
rolling wildly, and Buffalo Bill realized that he was confronting a
half-crazed enemy; and he was the more dangerous on that account.
But where was Wild Bill? He had had time to reach the peak, and yet
there was no sign of him.
While the king of scouts wondered at the nonappearance of his old
comrade, Holmes, holding the knife in a threatening attitude, backed out
of sight, and continued his ascent of the peak.
Buffalo Bill and his companions ran around the base to make a discovery
that at the moment gave them some satisfaction.
The villain’s progress had been stopped. There was a wide gap in the
rings; too wide to be covered by a leap.
The path Holmes with his burden had been pursuing terminated at a narrow
shelf over an almost vertical wall, which formed the back of a small
cove cut out of the base of the peak. The floor of the cove was not
smooth. Sharp, jagged sections of the rocky ledge upon which the base
rested pointed upward.
Rixton Holmes, standing perilously on the shelf, looked down, and he
gave a wild laugh as his eyes fell on the king of scouts, Bart Angell,
and Carl Henson. “The jig is up,” he shrieked. “Myra Wilton is going
into eternity, and I am going to follow her. I lose and you don’t win.”
“I am going to fire,” said Henson in a husky whisper. “I—I can’t stand
this.”
“Wait,” sternly commanded Buffalo Bill. “If there is any shooting to be
done, it must be done by me.”
As he ceased speaking, Holmes raised the limp form of the girl above his
head.
“Down she goes,” he yelled, and, dazed with horror, Carl Henson started
back, his rifle held in a nerveless hand.
It was a frightful moment. Buffalo Bill, whose wits had not deserted
him, did not fire, though he might have done so. He realized that a shot
would not save the life of the girl, for her form was held directly over
the precipice, and that she would fall the instant a bullet entered the
brain of the fiend who held her.
Therefore, instead of firing, he leaped into the cove, braced himself,
and raised his hands.
There came a savage shout from above, and the next instant the villain
fell back on the ringing rocks with Wild Bill on top of him.
The intent of the tall scout had been good, but it did not suffice to
bring the girl from a position of deadly danger to one of safety.
The sudden descent of Wild Bill from above the shelf caused Holmes to
relax his grip on the form of his victim.
Her senses had returned a moment before Holmes lifted her above his
head. As the villain fell over under the weight of the savagely excited
scout, she slipped over the edge of the precipice.
But she did not fall to the bottom. She clutched at the uneven surface
of the side wall as she went, and halfway down her belt caught on a
projection, and she hung there, head and feet pointing downward.
Her terrified eyes met the upturned gaze of the palefaced king of
scouts.
“Raise yourself if you can,” he shouted encouragingly, “and grip that
rock that has caught you.”
The attempt was made and was a failure. The girl was too weak to exert
more than a small portion of her normal strength.
“Rest a bit and try again,” counseled the scout. “If you can hold on a
few minutes, I’ll get you onto solid ground.”
“Can’t I do something?” said Carl Henson, his handsome face twitching
with agony.
“Yes,” was the quick response; “you can run to the ponies, where Holmes
left them, and get the reatas.”
The young man was off like a shot, but he never went as far as the spot
where the ponies had been secured. On his way he met Bart Angell. The
big backwoodsman had the reatas in his hand.
“I reckoned as how they’d shore be needed,” he said to Henson, “an’ so I
jest naterally made a bee line fer ther ponies without axin’ Cody’s
permission.”
When Henson and Angell reached the cove Myra Wilton had succeeded in
gettin’ her hands on the rocky projection, and Wild Bill was standing on
the narrow shelf above.
“Hike up here with those reatas,” Wild Bill shouted.
“I’ll take them,” said Carl Henson quickly. “I can make better time than
you, Mr. Angell.”
Buffalo Bill would not leave his position under the girl. She might fall
at any moment. If she did, it might be death for him and her, for there
was a sheer drop of nearly fifty feet.
Bart Angell regarded the king of scouts gravely. Soon he was standing
behind his comrade. “Go away, Bart,” commanded Buffalo Bill. “One is
enough.”
“Maybe not, son,” was the firm reply. “If she comes, I’ll shore yank you
back ther minute she strikes your arms. Thataway we’ll save some of ther
pieces.”
The king of scouts tried to smile, but could not. Above him the girl was
swaying about the projection that was holding her.
“I can’t hold on much longer,” she said faintly, and her voice just
reached the ears of the king of scouts. “And if I let go with my hands I
must fall, for the belt has given way.”
“You must hold on,” came the reply as a command. “Help is on the way.”
A shout from the shelf gave her courage. “I am here, Myra,” called out
Carl Henson tremulously. “I have got ropes, and they’ll be down to you
in a minute.” While he was speaking Wild Bill was twisting the reatas.
In the cove Buffalo Bill breathed a sigh of deepest relief.
The transition from torturing suspense to ardent hope was scarcely set
before Bart Angell screamed: “Look out, she is falling!”
He spoke the awful truth. Myra Wilton, turning to look up at her lover,
had broken off the end of projection of rock about which her hands were
clasped. If she had had wits about her she might have saved herself from
falling, but the accident unnerved her, and she relaxed her hold on the
solid, fixed, remaining section of the rock.
Carl Henson saw her fall, and would have leaped after her if Wild Bill
had not seized his arm in the nick of time.
The young man was struggling in the grasp of the tall scout, when a
joyous shout from the cove caused him to gaze into Wild Bill’s face in
utter bewilderment.
“A miracle, I reckon,” said the scout to the young man as they both
started for the shelf.
And a miracle, or something closely allied to one, had intervened to
save the life of Myra Wilton. Her lover, looking down, saw her safe in
the arms of Buffalo Bill.
She had not fallen straight from the projecting rock. There were other
projections on the side wall of the cove. She had caught at them as she
went down, and once her gown had held her up for a few seconds. When at
last she fell, to be received in the arms of the king of scouts, she was
not more than ten feet from the ground.
Five minutes later she was clasped to the breast of Carl Henson.
“A mighty close shave, Cody,” remarked Wild Bill, as he slapped his old
comrade on the back; “mighty close. I never expected to see either you
or her alive again.”
Buffalo Bill was sitting on a rock mopping his face. He was about to
make some sort of response, when Myra Wilton left her lover and stood in
front of him. First she smiled, and then impulsively leaned over and
kissed him.
“The debt is wiped out,” he said, as he took her two hands and pressed
them. “But”—he paused and smiled at Carl Henson—“you must let me dance
at your wedding.”
“You shall,” she responded, with a pretty blush.
The king of scouts now gave his mind to more serious concerns. “How is
it with Rixton Holmes?” he asked Wild Bill.
“It’s a case of dying, Cody. The fellow struck his cabesa on a sharp
rock when he fell, and the point became acquainted with his Sarah
Billium.”
“Can he talk?”
“Don’t know. I’ll bring him down for you.”
Bart Angell went with Wild Bill. They soon returned bearing the limp
form of the villainous cousin of Myra Wilton.
The wound was bandaged, and whisky was forced down his throat.
Soon he opened his eyes and stared about him. He saw the girl he had
tried to murder, and he looked into the sober, reproachful countenance
of the king of scouts.
“Take the money,” he said faintly, and trying to conjure up a smile.
“I’ve lost.”
He was asked to make a full confession of his crimes.
“Life is too short for that,” he replied, “but I’ll tell something about
the mine affair. I would never have plotted to kill my three uncles if I
hadn’t bumped up against Tom Darke. He knew me as Rixton Clay, and had
no notion that I was related to the Holmeses. We became card partners,
and soon I knew all his secrets. One night when he was pretty full he
told me that he had come West for the purpose of killing three
men—Peter, Jared, and Matt Holmes. At that time Peter’s mine was the
talk of Colorado. There had been a rich discovery, and the mine was
worth millions.
“Well, I reflected, and soon the plot was born. Tom Darke killed Peter
and Jared, and he would have killed Matt if I had not taken the job off
his hands. I had to, for I was afraid that Darke’s gun would miss fire
and that Matt would get him.
“The letter that brought my Cousin Myra to New Mexico was written by me.
I had ingratiated myself with my Uncle Matt, and I knew he had made a
will, leaving his estate to me and Myra. His estate then did not amount
to much, but the estate of Peter did, and when Peter and Jared died,
Matt became the owner of the mine. Before Myra arrived, Peter and Jared
had crossed the divide.
“I could have come forward and claimed half the estate when my three
uncles were dead, but I was afraid that I would be arrested. Although I
had covered my tracks pretty well, I dared not face the authorities.
Therefore, my scheme at the last was to marry Myra, compel her to give
me the larger part of her share, and then light out for foreign parts.
“I believe she was on the point of trusting me, when you, Mr. Cody, was
trapped in the cave. But I found when we got outside the hole that I had
caught a Tartar.”
His voice became so weak that it could scarcely be heard. More whisky
was administered.
“There is not much more for me to say,” the dying villain proceeded. “I
stole Crow-killer’s pony and trailed you and your friends, Mr. Cody, to
the Indian valley. I guessed your object. You were on your way to rescue
my cousin from the hands of the Navahos. I determined to block that game
if I could. I sneaked into the village ahead of you, and just after dark
got to Myra’s tepee, and was lucky enough to find that no one was with
her. I was once a druggist, and I have always carried on my person a
powerful and peculiarly acting drug that was sent to me from the East
Indies. This drug will produce a sleep that resembles death. I had come
to the tepee prepared to work a bold design, and before I crawled away
the drug was in the hands of Myra, and she knew what to do.”
“How did you deceive her,” asked Buffalo Bill.
“I used your name. A note accompanied the vial that contained the drug.
The note was signed with your name, and informed her that you were near
by, and that her rescue was certain if she would comply with your wish.
She must swallow the contents of the vial. A deep sleep would come, the
Indians would look upon her as dead, vigilance would be relaxed, and she
could be carried away before daybreak. I did not, of course, enter the
tepee, but thrust my hand under the wall of skins and made a slight
noise to attract her attention.
“The scheme worked better than I had planned. The rescue was made with
you, Mr. Cody, as my ally. The fight in the tepee was right to my hand.
Before it was over I was on my pony, with Myra in my arms.
“If I used her roughly after she came to her senses, it was because I
was half insane with fear. You were in pursuit, I knew it, and I knew,
also, that I was doomed unless I got safely out of the mountains.”
“Did Miss Wilton see me before you left the pony to run to the peak?”
asked Buffalo Bill. “She acted as if she did.”
“No, she did not see you, but she made me believe she did. Then I must
have gone wholly insane. I determined to kill her and then kill myself.”
The tale was told. In a few minutes Rixton Holmes was dead.
Not many weeks later Myra Wilton and Carl Henson were married in Denver.
Wild Bill Hickok left his partner to engage in a hunting expedition on
the Continental Divide. Buffalo Bill, however, had much else to attend
to. He had scarcely finished his work in the Holmes murder mystery
before he had received a telegram from Colonel Hayden, an army officer,
requesting the aid of the king of scouts in locating his beautiful
daughter, who had been kidnaped by a notorious bandit.