THE DYNAMITER AGAIN.
Buffalo Bill reached the hotel at Bozeman late that night, and learned
that Little Cayuse had not returned. He also, by careful inquiry,
discovered that the doctor was in Virginia City.
After a brief halt for food and rest for himself and horse, the scout
pushed on to the mountains southward, for he was anxious regarding Wild
Bill’s condition, and he half hoped that Little Cayuse had returned
there.
It was halfway from midnight to daylight when the scout was challenged
by the stern:
“Halt, dar! Who be yeh?”
“It’s all right, Skibo.”
“Bless my soul; it’s Mars’ Billyum hisse’f! We’s pow’ful glad, too,
Mars’ Billyum; dat’s what we is.”
“What is going wrong, Skibo?”
“Eberyting jes nachally gone to de debil, Mars’ Billyum.”
“What is it, Skibo; is Hickok worse?”
“No; but he’s so mad he jes’ can’t hol’ him skin ober ’is bones.”
“Well, well, what is it all about, Skibo?”
“In de fust place, Nomad he done git oneasy, an’ jes’ nachally couldn’t
stan’ it. So he done mount Hide-rack an’ slide out, an’ we hain’t seen
him no mo’. Den, jes’ ’fore midnight dat measly pris’ner wiggle outen
his rope an’ skedaddle. Mars’ Hickok done discober ’im jes’ in time to
wing ’im. But ’e got erway, swearin’ awful.”
“Cayuse hasn’t, returned?” asked the scout.
“No, sah; we hain’t seen ’im sence yo’ an’ he went away dat mawnin’,
Mars’ Billyum.”
They were approaching the little shelter where the Laramie man had lain
during his convalescence, and found the latter in no pleasant mood.
Hickok related the story of Bloody Ike’s escape, and told how old Nomad
had gone away, promising to return in a short time.
Hickok’s condition was so much improved that he proposed to ride into
town that morning, but the scout advised against it.
The scout himself was worn out from his wearying work of the last
forty-eight hours and scanty opportunities for rest. He decided to
sleep for a few hours, and then set out in search of Nomad and Cayuse.
Hickok remained on guard, and with the first streak of light was
scanning the plains, hoping for a glimpse of the fleeing Bloody Ike;
but if that worthy had left the hills he had reached town during the
hours of darkness.
Before setting out in the morning Buffalo Bill got all the particulars
of Nomad’s departure and where he was last seen to disappear behind the
table-land near the town. The scout cautioned Hickok and Skibo to be
constantly on guard against their late prisoner. He feared that Bloody
Ike had not left the hills and would attempt some sort of vengeance.
So Cody cautioned them to keep well behind the rocks where Ike could
not pick them off from a distance with a rifle and to be ready for an
attempted bomb throwing. The scout knew that the former boss of mine
explosives would welcome the opportunity to blow them all into eternity.
The scout readily found the place where old Nomad had met the enemy and
guessed that the trapper had been ambushed and overpowered there. But
he saw no blood, and decided that Nick had been made a prisoner and
was perhaps somewhere in the vicinity now, under guard.
As he studied his surroundings he heard the shrill neigh of a horse.
Bear Paw threw up his head, and would have answered, but the scout
clapped a hand over his horse’s nose. He then slipped on a muzzle he
had used before, and, leading Bear Paw into a dense thicket, hitched
him there, and began further investigation on foot.
Once more the whinny of a horse reached him, and the scout had no doubt
it must be Hide-rack. He knew it was not the call of an Indian pony.
At last he gently pushed aside the thick foliage and peered into a
little clearing where Hide-rack was alternately feeding and sniffing
the air in the direction of the place where Bear Paw was tethered.
Carefully scanning the little opening, the scout saw that a few rods
beyond was another, farther in among the rocks. Keeping to the thickest
part of the growth, he skirted the first opening, and approached the
other. And then Cody heard:
“Say, ye pizen red helgominian heifercat, why don’t ye do suthin’? Ye
set thar an’ smok’ yerself black in ther face an’ never offer me er
pipe.”
The scout peeped out and saw his pard trussed up like a pig for market,
while near him sat a solitary guard, pulling at a red clay pipe.
The Indian was as motionless and silent as a statue as Nomad kept
up his tirade of abuse. Buffalo Bill noiselessly left the cover and
approached the Indian’s back.
Old Nomad saw and understood. He increased his torrent of invective to
cover the noise of a possible slip of Pa-e-has-ka’s moccasin.
But there was no discovery until the scout’s sinewy hand slipped around
the Indian’s throat, and the silent struggle was soon ended.
The redskin was unharmed, but bound firmly, then gagged, and left in
the place lately occupied by the trapper.
Buffalo Bill asked the Indian if his companions would return at night,
and received an affirmative nod, so he and Nomad rode away to the hills
again.
That night the scout himself remained on guard and sent Nomad, Hickok,
and Skibo to rest. Cody was somewhat anxious regarding Little Cayuse,
and he felt confident that Bloody Ike was still in that region and
would attempt some sort of an attack on the party.
The shelter of brush and blankets was in a thicket of stunted willow,
which grew on a sort of stair of the mountain. Ten rods away was an
entrance to the abandoned mine. Along one side and four or five rods
away was a fall of sixty or seventy feet. On the other side and not
more than three rods from camp was another “rise” of thirty to fifty
feet.
The scout had cautioned his pards to stick close to the thicket, in
which were great blocks of rocks in uneven, toppling piles. Here they
were comparatively safe from the bullets of a lurking enemy on the
heights above. The scout believed that Bloody Ike knew every turn of
the old mine, and as a hiding place it could hardly have an equal. A
man with guns and ammunition could defy an army. He could bob up in
unexpected places and pick off a man and then disappear.
As soon as it was dark the scout stole out of camp and climbed to a
good position upon the rocks above. There he lighted his pipe and
settled down to a solitary vigil. In the shadow of a clump of bushes he
could not be seen, while he commanded a view of the moonlit rocks all
about him, and from where he sat he could see both entrances to the old
mine.
The scout turned over in his mind the incidents of the last few days,
and wondered at the rapidity of developments. He was opposing a
well-organized gang, as every incident indicated. In the attempt to
decoy him to his death the villains had made use of a small cannon as
a signal. There were not only white rascals in the gang, but they had
enlisted the services of various bands of Indians such as the one which
had captured Nomad. The members of the gang, or at least some of them,
placed no value on human existence. A man’s life would be taken with as
little compunction as that caused by the killing of a snake or a rat.
“What in the name of common sense is that?”
The scout’s muttered exclamation had been called forth by something
which came into view on the bare, flat top of the mountain beyond and
above the upper entrance to the mine.
It was a gray object, the very color of the rock along which it moved
noiselessly, and could not have been distinguished had it not been
outlined against the sky beyond.
The thing was moving toward the edge of the descent very slowly, as
though having no object in life whatever.
It was a shapeless mass, anyway, or seemed to be, perhaps distorted by
the moonlight and its own shadow. From all the scout could make out it
might be a small haystack or a cord of wood out for a ramble.
With rifle ready, for the scout was suspicious of this peculiarity, he
watched the thing approach the very edge of the precipice and pause.
There it rested, minute after minute, as motionless as the rock itself,
until the scout began to wonder if it had not all been an optical
illusion, and that he had been glaring at a great bowlder perched on
the brink of the abyss.
The scout rubbed his eyes, glanced away for a moment, and then looked
back.
Again he was surprised into a smothered exclamation.
The thing had grown a head. But its head was in proportion to its
size as that of a turtle. And it had grown out of the flat top of the
body--it was still growing.
The head was followed by a pair of human shoulders, and then an arm was
raised aloft, and in the hand was an object plainly outlined against
the sky.
It was the head, shoulders, and arms of a man, and the arm was about to
hurl something into the bushes far below.
Like lightning the scout’s rifle went into position, and just as the
arm launched its missile there was a sharp crack, followed instantly by
a thunderous roar and blinding flash at the crest of the mountain.
When the smoke had cleared away and the scout’s eyes became accustomed
to the moonlight again, he saw that the strange craft of the clifftop
had been wrecked. And out of the wreck an animated object was moving
along the bare rock. Then the moving thing sprang into a human form and
ran along the rocks for a short distance to disappear where the strange
object had first appeared to the scout.
Buffalo Bill had again raised his rifle, but lowered it with a chuckle.
“Guess Bloody Ike got a surprise party that time,” he said.
Down below old Nomad sang out:
“Are ye all right, Buffler?”
“Yes; go to sleep again. I don’t think you will be disturbed again
to-night.”
The scout climbed to the top of the rock and examined the wreck. It had
been a hogshead heavily padded with cotton waste and blankets in an
attempt at bullet-proof construction. Holes in the ends had been sawn
out below for the feet of the occupant and in the top for a peep hole,
and from which to shoot or hurl missiles.
Bloody Ike had attempted to throw a bomb into the camp of his enemies,
and Buffalo Bill’s bullet had caught it just as it left the rascal’s
hand. The explosion had destroyed the bullet-proof craft.