ANOTHER MYSTERY MET.
For three hours Buffalo Bill plodded through the loose footing in
the dismal gully. The rim along both sides was outlined against the
heavens, but in the shadowless realms between the high walls the
darkness could be felt, almost. The scout feared he might pass the men
he was seeking. On the other hand, if they attempted to escape under
cover of darkness he would stand two chances to their one of hearing
them first. He might pass them, and he might walk into the very muzzle
of their rifles.
Suddenly the scout paused and listened. He could hear something moving
a couple of rods ahead, so he crouched low and waited. He hoped if it
were men approaching on horseback that he would be able, by looking up
toward the light of the sky, when they were near, to discover who they
were.
He heard the movements continued, but they came no nearer.
At last the scout could curb his impatience no longer, and began to
make his way stealthily toward the sound. Inch by inch he approached,
lifting his feet noiselessly and softly setting them down in the
yielding mass. Then he felt that he could almost reach the thing that
was causing the slight rustling; he discovered that it was a pony.
Carefully reconnoitring the situation, the scout found the animal was
anchored to a point of rock and was hungrily attempting to find a nip
of green along the wall.
Passing this one, the scout came upon a group of three others, their
heads tied together in such manner that they could proceed in no
direction.
The scout believed that he had come upon the four ponies of Price and
Ike, and felt sure the human portion of the sextette must be near. He
determined to ascertain, even at the risk of making of himself a target
for their bullets.
Pressing between the ponies, the scout struck a match, and, so holding
it behind the neck of one of the ponies that it would not throw its
light in his own face, he scrutinized the place thoroughly for a rod or
two.
He was behind an angle in the wall, and beyond that perhaps the outlaws
were hidden.
As the light flickered and went out, he caught a glimpse of something
that caused a chill to run down his spine, and genuine grief touched
his heart.
There beyond the angle, on the sand almost against the opposite wall,
lay the arm of a man--and Buffalo Bill recognized the familiar stripes
and colors of old Nomad’s shirt.
Even Buffalo Bill for the moment was overwhelmed by the catastrophe.
His brave old trapper pard had gone across the divide, as he had often
wished to do, in active pursuance of his duty. The scout feared, too,
that Little Cayuse had met disaster, as appearances would indicate that
Price was having matters all his own way, and from some crevice in
the rocks was awaiting opportunity to wipe out others of the party in
search of him.
Well, there was more than one could play at the waiting game. The
scout slipped behind the ponies, and seated himself in the sand, his
back against the wall. He proceeded to make himself as comfortable as
possible.
The ponies were tired, hungry, and uneasy. They pulled each other about
after a time, and attempted to nose along the walls in search of water
or herbage. The scout remained quiet, with his ears strained for every
sound of interference by their owners, but no such sound came to him.
The dreary hours passed, and the gray light of morning at last began to
reveal the nooks and corners of the gully, yet the scout stirred not.
Presently he could see his surroundings distinctly, but nothing
indicated the presence of any human being other than himself. The
ponies were still pushing and pulling each other in futile attempts at
progress toward food and water.
For half an hour the scout awaited the movement of those whom he
suspected were watching for him. With ready revolver, he kept an eye
constantly on the jutting rock which marked the turn in the wall.
At last the critical moment arrived. He saw a slight shadow which
indicated the movement of some one beyond the angle moving slowly up
to it, and then just a curve of a human face as it pushed slowly by
the corner, taking in every inch of the way as the eye swept around
the corner where the scout awaited with eye glinting along his shining
barrel.
“Pa-e-has-ka!”
The exclamation was one of surprise mingled with relief.
Little Cayuse stepped into view and hurried toward the scout, who arose
quickly and extended his hand.
“I feared you had made your last trip with me, little pard,” he said.
“Ugh! Me ’fraid bad men get away. Keep eye on rock all night, make um
listen.”
“What happened to Nomad?”
“Sleep ketch um.”
“Poor old Nick!” murmured the scout.
“Ugh! Make um snore, scare pony.”
“How did it happen?”
“All same lie down, no put um head in bag.”
“What do you mean, Cayuse?” demanded the scout somewhat sternly. He had
begun to note the twinkle in Cayuse’s eye, and failed to reconcile the
Piute’s quiet levity with the seriousness of the occasion.
“Mean Nomad heap tired; stick head in sand; mebbeso crazy.”
The scout began to have hopes that somehow his fears had been
groundless.
“See here, Cayuse,” he began, with a little laugh, “what are you
driving at? Hasn’t Nick met with an accident?” And the scout advanced
around the corner far enough to view the grewsome relic lying against
the opposite wall.
“Wuh; him fall down hole, git ears full sand; sand in hair; sand in
eyes; sand in nose--mebbeso eat um bushel sand.”
“What is that?” asked Buffalo Bill, pointing at what he had taken to be
an arm of the trapper.
“Nomad call it ‘ketchumnappin’,’ me call um ‘fool war club.’”
The scout’s spirits rose.
“Where is Nick?” he asked.
“Over by Hide-rack. Him snore keep Navi ’wake.”
“Well, now where are the bad men?”
Cayuse shook his head dubiously.
“Me go ketch um, find Pa-e-has-ka.”
“I guess they have slipped us somehow, unless Hickok has done better
than we have. But let us arouse Nomad and see what he has to say about
his ‘ketchumnappin’.’”
The scout and Cayuse approached the sleeping trapper, who had rolled up
against the wall near Hide-rack. The horse was in no pleasant temper.
He wanted grass and water, and he had been hitched to a bare rock all
night. His head hung low, but he turned to look menacingly with ears
laid close, as his friends came near.
Buffalo Bill began throwing sand at the ill-tempered horse’s heels, and
the latter responded with vicious kicks and squeals as he danced about,
aiming his steel-shod battery at the scout and Cayuse.
Old Nomad reared up wildly from sound slumber, waving his arms and
shouting:
“Whoa, thar! Consarn ye! Whut ye doin’ ov, ye old gander? Tryin’ ter
kick up er rumpus an’ make me think I’m bein’ ’tacked by thirty-leven
Comanches an’ fourteen greasers all in er bunch? Quit it, ye ole
heifercat, ’fore I fall on ye, tooth an’ nail, an’ smite ye, hip an’
thigh.”
The scout laughed, and the trapper crawled out, cautiously watching the
light heels of Hide-rack the while, and muttering:
“’Pears ter me thet hee-haw soun’s nachal. Hah! Buffler! I might
a-knowed ’twas yore work, a-stirrin’ up ther varmint.”
“The first thing I want to know,” began the scout, “is what that
stuffed sleeve is for.”
The trapper blushed behind his whiskers and the grime of perspiration
and alkali dust. But he recovered quickly.
“Thet thar is er surpriser. I planned ter creep up on this side ther
rock an’ throw ther ketchumnappin’ ercross on t’other side, so’s ther
vilyuns c’d hyar et. I reckoned they’d fire at ther fust thing they
heard move in the dark, an’ then, ’fore they had er chanst ter think er
git their ears open, I jes’ cal’lated ter jump round ther corner an’
nab um.”
“How did it work?”
“Didn’t work,” grunted the trapper disgustedly.
“Did you throw it?”
“Uh-huh.”
“What did they do?”
“They throwed some consarned ball o’ powder, an’ ha’r, an’ stuff thet
flared up an’ showed my ketchumnappin’ sound ersleep. An’ me’n Cayuse
hed ter hedgehog back inter ther darkness right lively, whilst they wuz
poppin’ erway at us some cautious.”
“You didn’t try it again?”
“None whatever wuth mentionin’.”
“Well, they’ve slipped our net, and they did it so neatly that we don’t
know how they carried it out.”
The pards returned to the angle in the wall, and at last discovered
that Price and Ike had scaled the wall, probably early in the night,
and had made away on foot toward the southwest. By leaving their
stamping ponies to deceive the watchers they had made a clean and safe
getaway.
The pards now hastened out to the mouth of the cañon with all the
horses to join the Laramie man.
But once more they were disappointed. Wild Bill had disappeared with
both his own and Buffalo Bill’s horse. They found where the animals
had cropped the grass for a time during the early part of the previous
night. Now, out on the broad plain as far as the strong eyes of the
scout or of Cayuse could reach, there was no sign of man or beast in
any direction.
The scout was puzzled. Something had happened of importance to draw
Wild Bill from his post of duty.
The scout’s first business, however, was to allow the horses to graze,
then he would move on toward a river which showed like a silver thread
in the greenish-brown plain in the distance.
Buffalo Bill believed it must be the Big Horn River, but he had never
been in this part of the country before. He was impressed by the
magnificence of his surroundings. He had visions of broad, cultivated
fields, peaceful herds, and busy villages in this beautiful expanse
where now roamed the Indian, the buffalo, and the coyote. The very
immensity of it all impressed him. And yet he knew that beyond the
threadlike river the grazing lands rapidly degenerated into the barren
shale and useless acres of the Bad Lands, where only sage brush and
cactus grow, and these of a sickly sort.
The wonders of irrigation were then unborn for the West.