DENTON AND DELAND.
There was one man in Scarlet Gulch who, if he had had any doubt of
the masquerading of Buffalo Bill’s double, had that doubt completely
blown to the wind by what he witnessed in the street before the Flash
Light Saloon. That man was young Ben Denton, the lover of Ellen West.
He was far from dead; though wounded in the shoulder, and by
the shock of the bullet and his heavy fall rendered temporarily
unconscious.
On recovering consciousness, he discovered quickly that Ellen West
had been induced to leave the town with the man who had shot him, and
he knew she was unaware of that shooting, and had gone with the man
in full faith of his sincerity and good intentions.
Having crawled to his feet, and then received aid from friendly
hands, who bandaged his shoulder and gave him stimulants, the young
fellow’s courage gave him strength to get down into the street before
the Flash Light Saloon, where, he heard, Buffalo Bill had been
captured and was about to be hanged. He heard the scout’s explanation
and declarations of what had taken place, and he was sensible enough
to see that this man was really the great scout, of whom he had so
often heard, but up to that moment had not beheld. He saw how he and
the girl, and all their friends, had been fooled by the man who had
been so boldly masquerading as Buffalo Bill.
Denton was in that wild throng when Wild Bill made his appearance,
and he was still there when Silas Deland hurled the smoke-and-fire
bomb into the crowd, with such spectacular effect.
He saw the escape from the mob of the real Buffalo Bill, on the
back of Wild Bill’s horse, and accompanied by that redoubtable
fighter. Still lingering and weak, he heard the angry shouting and
denunciations, and the wordy commands of Slocum and Rainey, and saw
the hasty attempt being made to follow the fleeing men.
Then he still further gathered together his strength and his courage,
and, getting a horse from a stable near, he mounted, white-faced
and panting, but courageous and undaunted, and rode out of the town
himself, intending to be close to the mob of pursuers.
The drunken mob scattered as they left the town behind, some falling
out and returning almost at once, others continuing on. But though
Slocum and Rainey led, the pursuit was but a disorganized and
disorderly thing, and showed little capability.
“They’ll never do anything,” said Denton.
He turned from the racing and drunken pursuers, and rode away alone,
shaping his course in the direction he believed the false Buffalo
Bill had taken.
He had gone but a little way in this manner when he heard galloping
hoofs. Some one else was heading in the same course.
A mounted form loomed up out of the darkness, and this mounted form
drew rein.
“What, ho!”
“Who’s there?” said Denton, clutching the revolver he had armed
himself with before starting.
“Are you Ben Denton?”
Ben did not recognize the voice, and to be thus addressed rather
astonished him.
“Yes, that is my name,” he answered.
The horseman rode near; then he saw before him a man he had once
noticed in the Flash Light Saloon, a man whose face and nose were
very red as if from much drinking.
“Ho, ho!” cackled this man. “This is hard riding! I’ve been follerin’
ye fer nigh about an hour, seems to me.”
“What for?” Denton asked suspiciously, and sharply.
“Because of what I know about ye, and what I heard about ye. You’re
interested in the rescue of the young lady that has been run away
with by an imp o’ Satan who has been goin’ round playin’ a ruffianly
Buffalo Bill?”
“Yes.” Denton was puzzled. How did this man know so much?
“Well, I’m Sile Deland. I’ve been puttin’ up at the boardin’ house
over the Flash Light. I was gittin’ a horse fer myself when I seen
you git that’n and cut out. And I follered ye.”
“What for?” Denton wondered if this man was to be trusted. He knew
nothing about him.
“Because I’m a human bein’, and so am naturally int’rested in the
capture of the same man that you aire; and I didn’t know but that we
could hunt together, like a pair o’ wolves, say; and maybe I could
help you, and you could help me.”
“You know something about that man?” Denton asked.
“I don’t, but I know he’s a rascal. My name’s Silas Deland.”
“But I don’t know you,” the young man protested. “What do you want to
capture that man for?”
“Same as you do--to see that he gits what’s properly deservin’. Shall
we two jog along together, er do we sep’rate right here? Maybe I
could help ye. I was told you’d been shot; and when I seen ye go, I
recognized the fact that you wasn’t fit, and was takin’ some mighty
big resks.”
Denton, who had been holding on by sheer strength, felt a sudden
weakness, which he conquered.
“I think I’d prefer to go on alone, unless you can tell me just where
I can find that man, and who he is.”
“If I knew where to find him, I’d be happier than a fool; but I don’t
know. As to who he is, I don’t mind in tellin’ you that among them
that knows him best he’s called Panther Pete. So I’ve been told.”
“Panther Pete!”
“Ho, ho! I see you’ve heerd that name?”
“The name of the leader of the Black Bandits!”
“Jest the same feller. He cut up sich blood-and-thunder shines over
in the Bittersweet country that he had to light out of there. Buffalo
Bill was after him hard at the time. He disappeared, dropped out of
sight, and then reappeared here, callin’ himself Buffalo Bill, and
doin’ ther things you’ve heard hereabout. Well, that’s him, Panther
Pete--the blackest, meanest, most contemptible villain that walks
under the sky. He was down in Arizony onct, when I was there, and so
I know that much about him.”
“You’re after him? Who are you?”
“Me?” he cackled again. “Call me Sile Deland, and you’ll hit it.
I’m after him only because I think he ought to be punished, and I
like the excitement of a man hunt. Shall we strike hands together as
pards, and make this hunt in pair?”
The young man hesitated. “I think I’ll go alone,” he said finally.
“Thanks for your kind offer; and because I don’t accept, don’t think
I don’t appreciate it. But--I don’t know you; and I’ve found out that
when out here you don’t know a man it’s safe to let him alone.”
“You’re cautious, and caution usually wins, young man. I don’t blame
ye. So long!”
When young Denton went on again, Deland held in his horse until
the young man had passed on. Then he gave his horse its head and
permitted it to follow in the same general direction, drawing rein
now and then to listen to the clattering feet of Denton’s pony.
Suddenly there was confusion in those clattering hoofs.
“Ah! I expected it.”
Silas Deland rode forward finally, and soon he came on a sight that
startled him. Young Denton, overcome by weakness and loss of blood,
had tumbled blindly from his saddle. One foot clung to the stirrup,
and his horse was dragging him.
Silas Deland yelled to the horse, rode up to it, leaped to the
ground, and stopped it; and then, disengaging the young man’s foot,
he laid the unconscious youth down on the grass, and began to work to
restore him to consciousness.
“It’s what I looked for, young man! Your courage is bigger than any
other part of you--bigger even than your common sense, or you’d never
tried this thing in the condition you’re in. It’s a good thing for
you that I tried to keep close to you. You, and that young lady, too,
seem to be needin’ help about this time.”
He drew a metal whisky flask from his pocket and poured some of the
whisky down Denton’s throat.
“Oh, ho! You ain’t dead, ’tany rate! You’re comin’ round. Nothing
like this here wine of life to put a man’s breathin’ apparatus to
work when it’s gone on a sudden strike. Fer myself, though, I never
teches it, unless I’m snake bit, er dyin’; and I only prescribes it
in oncommon needy cases, like this here. You’re comin’ round! Well,
now, mebbe, you’ll have more respect for yer humble servant. And
we’ll go huntin’ that girl together, so we will.”
He gave Denton some more of the powerful stimulant, and was pleased
by his signs of returning animation.
When Denton opened his eyes to consciousness again, the first thing
he was aware of was that the queer stranger was sitting before him in
the darkness, chuckling like some strange animal, and offering him a
drink of whisky out of a metal bottle.