Buffalo Bill’s Weird Warning
OR,
Dauntless Dell’s Rival
BY
Colonel Prentiss Ingraham
Author of the celebrated “Buffalo Bill” stories published in the
BORDER STORIES. For other titles see catalogue.
[Illustration: Colophon]
STREET & SMITH CORPORATION
PUBLISHERS
79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York
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| Copyright, 1908 |
| By STREET & SMITH |
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| Buffalo Bill’s Weird Warning |
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(Printed in the United States of America)
All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign
languages, including the Scandinavian.
CONTENTS
PAGE
IN APPRECIATION OF WILLIAM F. CODY 1
I. MYSTERIOUS DOINGS. 5
II. ANOTHER STRANGER IN CAMP. 18
III. CAPTAIN LAWLESS. 30
IV. THE INDIAN GIRL. 37
V. WAH-COO-TAH AGAIN. 50
VI. AT THE FORTY THIEVES MINE. 63
VII. LAYING THE “GHOST.” 78
VIII. THE FIGHT AT THE ORE-DUMP. 89
IX. DELL AND CAYUSE ALSO DELAYED. 95
X. THE STRANGER AND THE STEER. 107
XI. A GIFT WITH A STRING TO IT. 119
XII. THE “FORTY THIEVES MINE.” 131
XIII. DELL AND WAH-COO-TAH. 144
XIV. LITTLE CAYUSE ON GUARD. 163
XV. THE RESCUE OF NOMAD AND WILD BILL. 176
XVI. THE CURTAIN-ROCK. 183
XVII. THE TURN OF FORTUNE’S WHEEL. 195
XVIII. THE ROUND-UP AT SPANGLER’S. 202
XIX. THE STAGE FROM MONTEGORDO. 209
XX. DOUBLE-CROSSED. 222
XXI. BUFFALO BILL AND GENTLEMAN JIM. 234
XXII. LETTER, RING, AND LOCKET. 241
XXIII. PICTURE-WRITING. 253
XXIV. ON THE WAY TO MEDICINE BLUFF. 260
XXV. A COWED OUTLAW. 273
XXVI. CHAVORTA GORGE AND PIMA. 280
XXVII. A BUSY TIME FOR CAYUSE. 293
XXVIII. A HAPPY REUNION. 300
XXIX. CONCLUSION. 309
IN APPRECIATION OF WILLIAM F. CODY
(BUFFALO BILL).
It is now some generations since Josh Billings, Ned Buntline, and
Colonel Prentiss Ingraham, intimate friends of Colonel William F.
Cody, used to forgather in the office of Francis S. Smith, then
proprietor of the _New York Weekly_. It was a dingy little office on
Rose Street, New York, but the breath of the great outdoors stirred
there when these old-timers got together. As a result of these
conversations, Colonel Ingraham and Ned Buntline began to write of
the adventures of Buffalo Bill for Street & Smith.
Colonel Cody was born in Scott County, Iowa, February 26, 1846.
Before he had reached his teens, his father, Isaac Cody, with his
mother and two sisters, migrated to Kansas, which at that time was
little more than a wilderness.
When the elder Cody was killed shortly afterward in the Kansas
“Border War,” young Bill assumed the difficult rôle of family
breadwinner. During 1860, and until the outbreak of the Civil War,
Cody lived the arduous life of a pony-express rider. Cody volunteered
his services as government scout and guide and served throughout
the Civil War with Generals McNeil and A. J. Smith. He was a
distinguished member of the Seventh Kansas Cavalry.
During the Civil War, while riding through the streets of St. Louis,
Cody rescued a frightened schoolgirl from a band of annoyers. In true
romantic style, Cody and Louisa Federci, the girl, were married March
6, 1866.
In 1867 Cody was employed to furnish a specified amount of buffalo
meat to the construction men at work on the Kansas Pacific Railroad.
It was in this period that he received the sobriquet “Buffalo Bill.”
In 1868 and for four years thereafter Colonel Cody served as scout
and guide in campaigns against the Sioux and Cheyenne Indians. It was
General Sheridan who conferred on Cody the honor of chief of scouts
of the command.
After completing a period of service in the Nebraska legislature,
Cody joined the Fifth Cavalry in 1876, and was again appointed chief
of scouts.
Colonel Cody’s fame had reached the East long before, and a great
many New Yorkers went out to see him and join in his buffalo hunts,
including such men as August Belmont, James Gordon Bennett, Anson
Stager, and J. G. Heckscher. In entertaining these visitors at Fort
McPherson, Cody was accustomed to arrange wild-West exhibitions. In
return his friends invited him to visit New York. It was upon seeing
his first play in the metropolis that Cody conceived the idea of
going into the show business.
Assisted by Ned Buntline, novelist, and Colonel Ingraham, he started
his “Wild West” show, which later developed and expanded into “A
Congress of the Rough Riders of the World,” first presented at Omaha,
Nebraska. In time it became a familiar yearly entertainment in the
great cities of this country and Europe. Many famous personages
attended the performances, and became his warm friends, including Mr.
Gladstone, the Marquis of Lorne, King Edward, Queen Victoria, and the
Prince of Wales, now King of England.
At the outbreak of the Sioux, in 1890 and 1891, Colonel Cody served
at the head of the Nebraska National Guard. In 1895 Cody took up the
development of Wyoming Valley by introducing irrigation. Not long
afterward he became judge advocate general of the Wyoming National
Guard.
Colonel Cody (Buffalo Bill) died in Denver, Colorado, on January
10, 1917. His legacy to a grateful world was a large share in
the development of the West, and a multitude of achievements in
horsemanship, marksmanship, and endurance that will live for ages.
His life will continue to be a leading example of the manliness,
courage, and devotion to duty that belonged to a picturesque phase
of American life now passed, like the great patriot whose career it
typified, into the Great Beyond.
BUFFALO BILL’S WEIRD WARNING.
CHAPTER I.
MYSTERIOUS DOINGS.
“What was that, Crawling Bear?”
“Ugh! Fire-gun make um big ‘boom.’”
“It was a fire-gun, all right, but where did the report come from?
That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”
Two horsemen were riding along a bleak, desolate-looking cañon, on
route to the mining-camp known as Sun Dance. One was a white man, and
the other an Indian. The white rider was William Hickok, of Laramie,
better known as “Wild Bill,” and his companion was a Ponca warrior.
Both Wild Bill and Crawling Bear had keen ears, and the muffled
report of the rifle came to them distinctly--not from right or left,
from ahead or behind, or above, but seemingly from the ground under
their horses’ hoofs.
Another report reached them, coming from the same place as the first,
and Wild Bill, with a puzzled look, drew rein and rubbed his hand
over his forehead.
“Am I locoed, or what?” he muttered. “It’s a trick of the echoes, I
reckon. Somebody is having a little gun-play in this vicinity, and
the bottom of the gulch picks up the sound and throws it back to us.”
The Indian made no response, although from his actions it seemed
quite clear that he did not accept the white man’s explanation.
Wild Bill rode on, and a sharp turn in the cañon brought him upon
something which led to a revision of his theory concerning the
rifle-shots.
What he saw was an ore-dump, off at one side of the cañon. The mound
of broken rocks was surmounted by a plank platform. Five horses were
hitched to bushes, not far from the ore-dump, but their riders were
not in evidence.
Wild Bill halted his horse, once more, and looked from the ore-dump
to the horses, and then around the cañon. While his eyes were busy,
there came a third rifle-shot.
“By gorry!” he exclaimed, and gave a low laugh. “This thing begins to
clear up a little, Crawling Bear. There’s a _mine_ here, and probably
the mine has a drift running down the gulch. The shots we heard
really came from under us, but they came from the bottom of the mine.”
“Ugh!” grunted the Ponca. “Why Yellow Eyes make um shoot in mine? No
got um game in mine.”
“Now you’re shouting, my redskin friend. What there is to shoot at,
in that mine, is a conundrum that your Uncle William is going to work
out. Maybe there’s no game to shoot at down there, but there’s a game
being pulled off that needs looking into.”
Wild Bill tossed his bridle-reins to the Ponca and slipped down from
the saddle.
“You go down in mine, huh?” queried Crawling Bear.
“That’s my intention,” was the answer.
“Five ponies, five Yellow Eyes down in mine. Mebbyso Crawling Bear
better go with Wild Bill.”
A smile curled about Wild Bill’s lips.
“Any old day the odds of five to one make me take a back seat,” said
he, “I hope some friend will hand me a good one and tell me to wake
up. I’m going to hide my hand, Crawling Bear. This is a case of find
out what’s doing, and then make a get-away on the q. t.--in case I
can’t help some unfortunate in distress. You look out for the horses;
and, if I can’t take care of myself, then I’m ready to be planted,
for it will be high time.”
With that, Wild Bill stepped to the foot of the ore-dump and climbed
carefully to the plank platform.
An empty ox-hide bucket stood on the platform, off to one side, but
there was no windlass for hoisting the bucket, and there did not
seem to be any ladders for getting down into the shaft. All this
contributed still further to Wild Bill’s perplexity, and at the same
time increased his determination to investigate.
But, if there were no ladders for getting into the mine, there was
a rope. The upper end of the rope was made fast to the edge of the
opening in the middle of the platform.
The Laramie man peered down into the shaft. The blackness was
intense, and he could see nothing, not even the gleam of a candle.
“Can’t tell whether the shaft is fifty feet deep or five hundred,”
he muttered, “but it’s a cinch that none of the men who came here on
those five horses are anywheres around the foot of the shaft. If they
were, they’d jump a piece of lead at me. With my head over the hole,
like this, I’m a good target. Now to go down.”
For an instant Wild Bill sat on the platform, his feet dangling over
the abyss; then, slowly letting himself down, he grabbed the rope and
began to slide.
The shooting continued, the echoes booming louder in Wild Bill’s ears
and increasing his curiosity. Wild Bill was down fifty feet before he
touched bottom. The shaft was not so deep, after all.
Leaving the lower end of the rope, he groped his way around the shaft
wall until he found the opening of the level. In traversing the
level, he dropped to his hands and knees, and crawled.
The level crooked to right and left, and, after Wild Bill had covered
something like fifty feet of it, he began to hear voices, and to see
a glow of light in the distance.
Pushing his head and shoulders around a turn, he suddenly beheld a
queer scene, right at the end of the level.
Five men were there, and four of them carried lighted candles. The
fifth man had no candle, but was armed with a shotgun.
The men had all the earmarks of scoundrels, and each was heeled with
a brace of six-shooters. The fellow with the shotgun had a belt about
his waist, above his revolver-belt, filled with brass shells.
Just as Wild Bill came within sight of the group, the man with the
shotgun was “breaking” the piece at the breach, ejecting an empty
shell and replacing it with one that was loaded. Having finished the
loading, the man threw the gun to his shoulder and shot the charge
into the breast of the level.
“We’re blowin’ a hull lot o’ good stuff inter this bloomin’ country
rock, Clancy,” growled a man with a candle. “Ain’t ye done enough?”
“I started in with fifteen shells,” replied Clancy, the rascal with
the gun, “an’ thar’s five left. We might jest as well close up the
rock with what we’ve still got.”
“How do ye know ther feller’ll take his samples from the place ye’re
puttin’ them loads?”
“He’ll git his samples from the breast o’ the level, won’t he?”
struck in another man with a candle. “By the time we’re done, thar
won’t be a patchin’ he kin pick at but’ll hev its salt. Cap’n
Lawless’ll land him, an’ thar’ll be a hundred thousand ter pass
around. The ‘Forty Thieves’ Mine is a played-out propersition, but
the Easterner won’t find that out until arter us fellers git our
hooks on ther money. Then we’ll hike.”
Clancy banged another load into the rocks.
“Why in thunder ain’t Lawless hyer?” asked another of the
candle-bearers. “He ort ter be helpin’ us, seems like.”
“Don’t you fret none erbout Lawless, Tex,” replied Clancy. “He’ll be
around afore long, ready ter do the fine work an’ land the lobster.
We don’t need him fer this, an’ it’s a heap better fer him not ter
show up in ther cañon while this job o’ salt is bein’ pulled off. If
Lawless ain’t seen around hyer, he won’t be suspected o’ any crooked
work.”
“What’s Lawless doin’, anyways?” queried the man who had spoken first.
“I dunno, but I reckon he’s watchin’ thet ole flash-light warrior,
Buffler Bill. Ye see, Andy, Lawless ain’t anyways eager ter tangle
up with Buffler Bill an’ his pards; not but what Lawless could put
ther scout an’ his friends down an’ out--fer head-work, I backs Cap’n
Lawless, o’ ther Forty Thieves, ag’inst all comers, bar none--but
Lawless is jest startin’ inter this hyer profitable field, an’ he
don’t want ter hev no interruptions.”
“Buffler Bill is workin’ fer ther gov’ment,” said Tex. “He won’t
bother none with the cap’n.”
“Ye never kin tell about him, Tex,” averred Clancy. “Wharever Buffler
scents any unlawful doin’s, he’s li’ble ter butt in; an’ we don’t
want ter give him no chance ter git fracasin’ round with _us_.”
“But if he does,” said Tex, “we’re goin’ ter do him up?”
“We are,” declared Clancy; “him an’ his pards--Nomad an’ ther Injun
kid, Leetle Cayuse. I’m close ter the last ca’tridge, Tex, an’ you
an’ Andy better go up an’ have ther hosses ready. We won’t linger
around ther ore-dump none, arter we come out.”
Wild Bill, screened by the corner of rock, had heard every word of
this talk. The mysterious doings, in the light of the conversation
among the scoundrels, was now clearly explained.
The five men were “salting” the worthless mine; that is, they had
loaded the shotgun-shells with fine gold, and were blowing the gold
into the breast of the level. When the intended victim came to take
his samples of the vein, he would chip off pieces of the doctored
rock, and when the rock was assayed, it would show the mine to be a
heavy “gold-producer.” On this showing, unless the intended victim
was warned, a hundred thousand dollars would change hands, and
Captain Lawless, of the Forty Thieves, whoever he was, would be that
much richer.
“I’ll nip this little scheme in the bud,” thought Wild Bill, as he
drew back and crouched against the wall for Tex and Andy to pass.
The passing of the men, with their candles, was filled with
considerable danger for Wild Bill. If the two ruffians saw him, there
was bound to be a fight, for it would not do to let Wild Bill get
away with the information he had discovered.
Wild Bill drew his revolvers and made himself as small as possible.
Had there been time, he would have hastened back to the shaft, along
the level, and climbed the rope. But he knew he could not have gotten
half-way up before Tex and Andy would have located him. It was better
for Wild Bill to stay right where he was, and hope for the best.
The whole affair, as Wild Bill had planned it, was reckless in the
extreme; but he was daring by nature, and rarely counted the cost
before making a leap in the dark.
This must have been his evil day, and the beginning of a series of
evil days, as will soon appear. Tex and Andy were stumbling past him,
when the former, tripping on a stone that lay on the bottom of the
level, fell sideways, dropping his candle and falling full on the man
from Laramie.
The candle was extinguished, but Tex, encountering the intruder, gave
vent to a wild yell of alarm. Wild Bill’s fist shot out, and Tex
crumpled flat along the floor of the level; the blow was followed
by another, which landed on the point of Andy’s jaw, and threw him
against the hanging wall. His candle also dropped, and Wild Bill set
his foot on the sputtering flame.
By then Clancy and the other three had started at a run to see what
was the trouble. Wild Bill, berating his hard luck, rushed toward the
shaft, but he was running in the dark--a circumstance which brought
him many a bruise and bump. Behind him came three men with two
candles, but Tex and Andy were temporarily out of the race.
From time to time, as he stumbled onward, Wild Bill looked backward
over his shoulder. Suddenly he saw Clancy halt, lift the shotgun, and
shoot along the level.
Quick as a flash, Wild Bill dropped flat. He had no desire to stop a
charge from a brass shell, even though it was of gold.
The fine yellow metal whistled over his head. As the echo of the shot
clamored in the level, Wild Bill sprang up and forged onward with a
reckless laugh.
“They can’t salt _me_,” he muttered, “but I may be able to salt one
of them with lead.”
He paused long enough to chance a shot from his six-shooter. A yell
of pain came from Clancy. The shotgun clattered to the rocks, and he
grabbed at his right arm.
The other two men thereupon began using their revolvers, accompanying
their shooting with savage yells.
Wild Bill, pushing flat against the foot wall, deliberately snuffed
the two candles that remained alight. His wrist had been grazed by
one of the ruffians’ bullets, but it was a small injury, and he gave
it scant attention.
As soon as the level was entirely plunged in darkness, he ran on to
the shaft which, by then, was only a few feet away.
The time had passed for fighting. It was up to him to retreat, and to
see how quick he could get to the top of the shaft, and out of it.
Jabbing his revolver back into his belt, he laid hold of the rope and
started aloft, hand over hand.
Clancy and the rest, meanwhile, had not remained inactive. They
must have been considerably in the dark as to the identity of their
enemy, but they realized that he had caught them red-handed, and that
the success of their whole plot might hang on their capturing him.
Therefore they pushed forward desperately, Clancy in a rage because
of his wound. Tex and Andy, having revived sufficiently from the
sledge-hammer blows they had received, had joined the others.
“Don’t strike any matches,” Wild Bill heard Clancy yell, “and don’t
light no candles. We don’t want the whelp ter make targets o’ us.
Ketch him, thet’s all! Consarn his picter! he’s given me a game arm.
I want ter play even fer thet, anyhow.”
Above him, Wild Bill could see a square patch of daylight as he
climbed. His progress was slow, however, and he knew that when Clancy
and the rest got to the shaft, they would see him swinging in mid-air
between them and the lighted background.
As Wild Bill looked up, he saw the head of Crawling Bear leaning over
the opening and looking down.
“Cover that hole, Crawling Bear!” roared Wild Bill. “They’re after
me, the whole five of ’em. Look alive, now.”
The Ponca was quick-witted, and must have realized the situation. His
head vanished from the patch of light the instant Wild Bill ceased
speaking.
Climbing hand over hand was slow work. Wild Bill’s arms were strong,
and he did his best, but his best did not carry him upward nearly so
swiftly as he could have wished.
Sounds of scrambling feet came from below him, followed by the voice
of Tex.
“Thar he is! See him squirm, will ye? Pepper him! Turn loose at him!”
Just then the hole above suddenly darkened. Wild Bill was still a
target, but not so plain.
The shaft echoed with a patter of reports. A sharp, stinging blow
struck the heel of Wild Bill’s boot, the broad brim of his hat shook,
and he was raked along one side as by a red-hot iron.
“Wow!” he muttered; “if they put a piece of lead into one of my
arms----”
And just then that is exactly what they did. It was Wild Bill’s left
arm. The strength went out of the arm in a flash, and Wild Bill only
saved himself from dropping back to the bottom of the shaft by a
fierce grip on the rope with his right hand.
How could he climb now? The outlook was anything but reassuring.
All this time the Laramie man felt a movement of the rope, as though
Crawling Bear, at the top of the shaft, was tinkering with it under
the cover he had placed over the opening.
“I reckon he ain’t climbin’ no more,” roared the voice of Clancy,
from the depths. “Lay holt, thar, Tex, an’ see if ye kain’t crawl up
an’ haul ther whelp back. He’s winged, mebby, an’ kain’t climb.”
This, as we know, was Wild Bill’s condition. He had twisted the rope
about one of his legs, and was able to maintain his place, but, if he
did not drop downward, neither could he move upward an inch.
Tex, evidently, had grabbed the rope, for it tightened cruelly around
Wild Bill’s leg.
The Laramie man’s arm did not seem to have been very seriously
injured. So far as he could judge, what the arm was suffering from,
more than anything else, was the shock of the bullet.
Twisting the arm about the rope, he drew his knife from its scabbard
at his belt, and bent downward. A quick slash severed the rope in
twain, and a heavy fall and a chorus of oaths came from the shaft’s
bottom. Tex had dropped upon some of his companions, for the moment
demoralizing them.
This move of Wild Bill’s, while necessary for his safety, almost
proved disastrous to him as well as to Tex.
Wild Bill’s left arm was not to be depended upon. At the critical
moment it gave with him; and, had he not dropped the knife and
gripped the rope with his right hand, he would have followed Tex onto
the heads of Clancy and the others.
Before the disorder at the bottom of the shaft could be righted,
and the scoundrels again begin their revolver-work, Wild Bill felt
himself started upward with a jerk.
Crawling Bear was taking a hand! Just what he had done Wild Bill did
not know, but that his means, whatever they were, were effectual,
was proved by the swiftness with which Wild Bill was hauled to the
platform.
In less than half a minute after Wild Bill started upward, his head
struck against a blanket covering the mouth of the shaft, and he was
snaked out onto the planks, and lay blinking in the sun.
At the foot of the ore-dump stood the Ponca with a hand on the bridle
of Wild Bill’s horse. The Laramie man saw in an instant what his red
companion had done.
After covering the mouth of the shaft with his blanket, he had
secured the picket-rope from Wild Bill’s saddle and had tied one end
to the horn; the other end he had secured to the rope leading down
into the shaft, and had then cut the shaft-rope. By leading Wild
Bill’s horse across the cañon from the foot of the ore-dump, the
Ponca had been able to get his white companion to the surface by
horse-power.
“You’re all to the good, Crawling Bear!” declared Wild Bill, sitting
up at the edge of the ore-dump and pulling off his coat. “I had a
close call, down there, and I reckon those yaps would have got me if
it hadn’t been for you.”
Crawling Bear untied the rope from the saddle-horn and began coiling
it in. When he had removed the rope spliced to the end of the
picket-rope, he hung the coil in its proper place at Wild Bill’s
saddle.
“Wild Bill hurt, huh?” he asked, mounting the side of the dump.
“A gouge through the fleshy part of the arm, that’s all,” the Laramie
man answered, examining the injury. “The bullet flickered along the
muscles and went on about its business.”
Wild Bill had cut away the sleeve of his flannel shirt in order to
examine the injury. Out of the bottom of the sleeve he improvised a
bandage, and Crawling Bear helped him put it in place.
When the arm was roughly bandaged, Wild Bill thrust his hand into the
breast of his shirt.
“I’m worth a dozen dead men yet,” he went on, “but that outfit sure
had it in for me. Don’t know as I can blame them, though, as they’ve
got a hundred thousand at stake. I’m going to fool them out of that
hundred thousand--watch my smoke.”
He looked at the bullet-hole through the brim of his hat, then at his
left boot, from which the heel was missing, and finally at the place
where a bullet had raked along the side of his clothes, after which
he laughed grimly.
“They had a good many chances at me, Crawling Bear,” he proceeded,
“but they didn’t make good. We’ve got ’em bottled up in that mine
now, and we’ll keep ’em there until I can get Pard Cody to Sun Dance.
I’ve got a notion he’ll enjoy meeting that gang of trouble-makers.”
The Ponca picked up his blanket from the platform and threw it over
his shoulders.
“Yellow Eyes?” he queried.
“You bet! They’re white tinhorns, every last man of them. It’s up to
you and me to call their little game. It’s a salting proposition,
with a tenderfoot standing to lose a hundred thousand in good, hard
money. Let’s ride for Sun Dance and get there as quick as we can.”
“What about um five _caballos_?” asked the Ponca, his small, beady
eyes gloating over the five horses belonging to Clancy and his outfit.
“Oh, we’ll leave them. Haven’t time to bother with ’em, anyhow.”
Wild Bill descended the slope lamely and climbed into his saddle.
A few moments later, he and the Ponca were continuing on along the
cañon toward Sun Dance.