BUFFALO BILL’S CAPTURE.
The Red Feathers who had discovered and captured the baron had also
discovered the presence of Buffalo Bill’s party, or had been informed by
the woman.
This was not immediately manifest, however. Buffalo Bill drew his party
back from the mouth of the mountain notch, intending to go into
concealment until by careful scouting he could learn something about the
Toltec town supposed to be in that hole in the plain.
By and by Buffalo Bill set out alone, intending to steal along the base
of the mountains which girt the valley, hoping to come on something
which would aid him. He had two reasons now for wanting to get into the
town which he was sure existed. The child was there, and so was the
baron. Toltec Tom had so apparently deserted him that he concluded not
to trouble about the fellow, unless fate threw the latter in his way.
The great scout had proceeded nearly a mile when a sudden outburst of
yells behind him, accompanied by a cracking of rifles, told him that his
friends had been attacked.
He began to backtrack at once, to assist them in this emergency, when he
discovered that some Red Feathers had got in between himself and the
camp.
Suddenly he found himself between hills, on the edge of a cañon, with no
way of crossing but an Indian footbridge of ropes, a thatching of ropes
and reeds—a swaying, flimsy structure, hanging over the cañon and
reaching from side to side.
There was no time for hesitation, and Buffalo Bill rushed upon the
swaying bridge, in an effort to cross.
In the middle of it he halted and drew his revolvers. By apparent
intention, he had been driven upon that bridge by the Indians who had
chased him, that he might be corralled, for other Indians now appeared
in the path on the other side of the cañon, closing in on him there, as
the others were closing in on him from the rear.
On each side Indians dashed to the ends of the bridge and began to hack
at the ropes.
Buffalo Bill was trapped, and death by bullets or arrows, or by a drop
into the cañon, seemed to await him, for even though he slew the
foremost of his foes he could not escape the other Red Feathers hurrying
to their aid.
Nevertheless, he stood defiantly on the swaying structure as the Indians
hacked at the ropes which held it at the ends. His threatening revolvers
kept the Red Feathers from rushing out upon him, yet it was soon
apparent that they desired to have him as a prisoner, rather than drop
him into the cañon or riddle him with their gold-headed arrows.
One of them, apparently a chief, put up his hand, shouted something that
stopped the work of cutting the ropes, and stepped to the end of the
bridge at the farther side. Buffalo Bill did not know it, but the chief
was old Fire Top.
What the feathered chief said Buffalo Bill did not comprehend, beyond
the fact that his gestures told he wanted the white man to surrender;
the language was one the great white scout had never heard, though he
was familiar with many Indian dialects.
He threw his revolvers down on the bridge, and followed them with his
hunting knife. It was suicidal to do anything else. The Red Feathers had
him at their mercy.
Then he held up his empty hands, palms outward, in token of peace and
submission.
A yell of triumph burst from the throats of the bedizened Indians, and
the chief who had spoken stepped out on the bridge to secure the
discarded weapons, while his warriors on the shores set arrows to their
bows and stood ready to slay the white man if he showed treachery.
Old Fire Top was a glittering fellow, shining with ornaments of gold and
silver, and with a breastplate of gold which nearly covered his bosom
and glittered brightly in the sun. It was native gold, fashioned rudely
by Indian hammers; in its center shone that rayed image of the sun.
“Gold must be cheap as clay round these parts,” was the scout’s
reflection. “I wonder where they got it all. It’s a good thing for them
that the white men over yonder at Skyline don’t know about it, and it
stands them in hand to keep the secret close.”
It was a thought which caused him to realize how great was his peril.
Only by killing the white men who fell into their hands, and covering
these mountains with a pall of terror, could the Red Feathers keep from
the outer world all knowledge of the wonderful stores of gold which it
seemed they undoubtedly possessed.
The chief threw the revolvers and knives to the shore, then produced a
thin rawhide rope, unwinding it from about his own body, where it had
been concealed by the gold-ornamented panther skin which he wore round
his shoulders and waist.
Without a word the scout submitted to having his hands tied and a length
of the rawhide rope passed loosely round his ankles. The end of this
rope the chief retained in his hand, so that if the prisoner tried to
run he could jerk it and trip him.
The chief motioned, and Buffalo Bill walked on across the bridge,
followed by the Indians who had chased him, and was surrounded at once
by those on the other side.
Closing round him and the chief, the warriors formed a guard and
conducted him hurriedly along the narrow mountain path until they came
to a series of steps cut in the stone and leading from the top of the
precipice down into the hole which held the Toltec town.
While descending these steps, which he saw could be readily guarded by a
few men, Buffalo Bill had a good view of the town lying in the bottom of
the deep cavity, the hole, as has been said, being above a mile in
diameter in its widest part.
The houses were flat-roofed, and most of them seemed to be communal,
indicating a large population. The streets were winding and narrow. But
near the heart of the town the thoroughfares were wider, and a large,
circular street was there, inclosing a low dome-shaped building whose
roof flashed in the sun as if it were of beaten gold. Close by it,
seeming a part of it, were other buildings that were smaller.
Near that dome-shaped structure rose what at first the scout took to be
the smoke of a large fire, but when he was lower down on the long flight
of steps he saw that a pool of some kind lay there, sending up steam,
and he recalled the mud pots he had seen hissing and bubbling by the way
he had come from Skyline.
He saw, also, as he got still farther down with his captors, that the
houses were of stone, a grayish-white marble apparently, and that they
were richly ornamented with gold, or with something which glittered like
that metal.
The stone stairway led to the circular street before the domed house,
and there a great concourse of red-feathered Indians, whose armlets, leg
bands, and other ornaments flashed in the sun.
In their midst, standing as on a pedestal, he beheld a white woman,
clothed in white, fringed deerskins, with a circlet of gold on her
abundant black hair, and behind her, his face pale and his manner
nervous, stood Tom Conover, staring at the captive scout.
“The traitor!” was the scout’s indignant thought, as he flashed Conover
a look of high scorn. “This is worse than that affair of the Niobrara.”
A way opened before him between ranks of Indians, and Buffalo Bill was
conducted through it into a stone prison.
When he was thrust in, and the door banged behind him, a human form
flung itself against him.
“Ach! Donnerwetter! Dis is awful!”
It was the baron.