MOBBED AND THREATENED.
Panther Pete and his escort, with the girl, were seen as they
galloped out of the town.
A hue and cry was raised immediately, and the story was circulated
that Buffalo Bill and some of his Border Ruffians had invaded the
town and had kidnaped the beautiful Ellen West.
The young man who had fallen from the steps under Panther Pete’s
pistol fire, and had been left there by Panther Pete as dead, revived
sufficiently to crawl to the next house, and to raise the alarm.
Mrs. Dean, on being interviewed, told her story; but it did not
change the general belief that the girl had been abducted; it being
argued that “Buffalo Bill” had used persuasions that were false to
get her out of the town, so that in truth it was an abduction.
Mrs. Dean had heard Panther Pete’s declarations that young Denton had
already departed for West’s mining claim in the Blue Hills; and, of
course, this was seen at once to have been a lie.
Hence, it was believed that the statement that the girl’s father had
asked her to go out there was also a lie.
A tremendous excitement was created.
The half-drunken men at the Flash Light heard the news of the
abduction, and of the shooting of Denton. They roared their rage, and
the vigilantes rushed about as if they hoped to capture the man they
had already determined to hang.
While this tremendous excitement was at white heat, Buffalo Bill rode
leisurely into the town.
Riding up to the hitching rail in front of the Flash Light Saloon,
where, as he saw, something exciting was occurring, he calmly tied
his horse, and was on the point of entering the place when he was
seen.
A wild roar of surprise and rage rose. Then a swarm of men stormed
out of the saloon and quickly surrounded him.
He could not at first understand the nature of their clamor, but he
saw them fingering their weapons, and saw that their tones and manner
were threatening in the extreme.
“What’s the trouble, friends?” he asked.
“It’s you!” was bellowed at him.
“Is that so? Let us go into the Flash Light, where you may all drink
at my expense, and there we will talk it over.”
“Here come the vigilantes, with Slocum and Rainey!” some one howled.
Rainey and Slocum had quickly gathered their following, and were now
descending on the scout. Slocum was in the lead, spectacularly waving
his hand, and Rainey carried a revolver.
“Surrender!” Slocum shouted, almost hysterically.
Buffalo Bill looked amazed. “Surrender! Why should I surrender?”
A roar of wrath went up.
Slocum planted himself in front of the scout, in an oratorical
attitude. “Because, sir,” he shouted, “you are a would-be murderer.
Not a half an hour ago, sir, you shot down in cold blood one of our
esteemed feller citerzens, Ben Denton. That he’s livin’ is not your
fault. He got a bullet in his left shoulder, sir, and it came near
wingin’ him on the way to that land where murderers like you, sir,
can never hope to go. That’s the first indictment we bring against
you before the court of Judge Lynch, sir.
“I am,” he waved his hand, “the prosecuting attorney, charged by the
citerzens of this town with assistin’ the judge in the performance of
his duty, and in the bringin’ to jestice of them that has willfully
and wickedly violated the law.
“My second charge against you, sir, is that you are the leader of
that rascally and villainous organization of thieves and cutthroats,
known hereabouts as Buffalo Bill’s Border Ruffians; and that as such
head of this villainous organization aforesaid you have been robbin’
stagecoaches and wanderin’ wayfarers on our highways, and filchin’
the hard earnings of the miners of this great and growing community,
sir.
“In other words, you are Buffalo Bill--the man who came to this
peaceable section posing as an honest and honorable man, and then has
secretly done deeds that the light of day shudders, sir, to look at.
“In chargin’ you, sir, with these crimes, I now mention the runnin’
away a while ago with Miss Ellen West. And fur these things I ask
that the vigilantes, organized for this purpose, take you, and tie a
rope round your wu’thless neck, and swing yer wu’thless carkiss to
that tree limb over there; and may God have mercy on your soul!”
The scout had listened at first in amusement and amazement. He now
saw that there was black meaning back of all this fustian; that in
truth this bombastic orator represented a committee of vigilantes
determined to take his life. He saw, too, how easy it was for these
men to mistake him for the man who had been masquerading in his place.
“See here,” said Buffalo Bill, “you are making the greatest mistake
of your life. I have heard of the rascal for whom you take me, and
I agree that if what has been reported of him is true he deserves
hanging; but I am not that man. I am William F. Cody, known as
Buffalo Bill. There is a man, I am told, in this section, who has
been posing as Buffalo Bill.”
They interrupted him with howls of anger and laughter.
He saw now that he would have to fight his way through that crowd if
he hoped to get away, and he swung with a quick movement into his
saddle. But as he did so, he heard an ominous clicking of revolvers
and saw that more than a dozen were trained on him.
To attempt to break through the crowd, it seemed, would be simply
suicide. He might kill one, or several, of these men, but they could
get him in spite of that; and then they certainly would make short
work with him at the end of a rope.
They pushed toward him angrily, and three or four jumped to get hold
of his bridle reins.
“Will you listen to reason?” he said. “I came here because I had
heard of the things done by that masquerader who was sullying my good
name.”
“Oh, we don’t take no bluff like that!” was yelled at him.
“We know that you’re Buffler Bill, all right,” another shouted. “And
it’s Buffler Bill we’re wantin’.”
Some of them took hold of his legs as if to drag him out of his
saddle.
“You won’t believe that you are making a mistake?”
“Hang him!” roared the mob.
Some one flourished a rope suggestively, while the crowd surged
round, roaring and shouting.
Buffalo Bill now drew a revolver. He did not intend to be hanged by
this mob. If his life was to be lost he would lose it fighting, not
at the end of a rope.
Suddenly he drove his spurs desperately into the flanks of his horse,
having before that, by a slash of his knife, released it from the
hitching rack. It made one jump, then a revolver cracked, and the
horse fell sprawling, a bullet in its brain.
The scout would have been hurled violently to the ground if he had
not disengaged his feet from the stirrups and landed in an upright
position.
As he struck the ground he held a revolver in each hand, and he was
ready to use them.
He felt that his last hour had probably come, but he meant to meet it
like a hero; these men would not have it to say afterward that he had
gone to the rope like a cringing coward. And if he had to die, he
would take dear toll to pay to the grim ferryman.
But before he could use his revolvers there was a shout in the
street, a loud clatter of galloping hoofs, and a man came dashing up
into the very fringe of the howling mob.