THE FIGHT AT THE ORE-DUMP.
When Buffalo Bill raised his head and shoulders above the edge of the
platform, bullets flew about his ears like a swarm of angry bees. He
could not see the Indian girl, and he could not see any enemies, but
a shout from the girl called his attention as soon as he had pulled
himself out on the planks.
“Here, Pa-e-has-ka!” the girl called.
Her voice came from the side of the cañon, and the scout saw her head
lifted over a heap of boulders.
Bullets continued to sweep the ore-platform, but, before the scout
hurried to join Wah-coo-tah, he knelt, picked up his hat and coat,
and called to his pards.
“Stay where you are!” he ordered. “You haven’t any guns, and you’d
only be in the way.”
Having delivered these instructions, he whirled and leaped down the
side of the ore-dump. Bullets from behind boulders across the cañon
followed him as he ran, yet he managed to gain the barrier, behind
which Wah-coo-tah had taken refuge, without injury.
“Who are the men?” were the scout’s first words.
“My fadder and the other Yellow Eyes,” replied the girl.
“How many, Wah-coo-tah?”
“Seven.”
“That means the whole gang is here,” observed the scout, thinking
dejectedly of his brace of Colts, which were all the firearms he and
his pards had. “Where are the gang’s horses, Wah-coo-tah?”
“No _sabe_,” answered the girl. “Mebbyso cayuses left up the gulch.
When they come they walk, creep ’long behind rocks. Me no see um till
they come close. Then me shoot, and they begin to shoot, too. No like
um. Heap bad Yellow Eyes.”
“Have they got rifles?”
“No got um rifles; got revolvers.”
“If there are seven of them, and they have each a brace of
six-shooters, then they have fourteen revolvers to our two. Unless
something unexpected happens, they’re going to give us a run for our
money.”
Very cautiously Buffalo Bill looked over the top of the boulders and
sized up the enemy’s position. Lawless and his men appeared to be
scattered up and down the opposite side of the cañon, every one of
them back of a boulder.
The firing was not so brisk as it had been, and it was quite probable
that Lawless was himself taking stock of the situation before
allowing matters to go any further. As a point to this conclusion
of the scout’s, the head of Lawless, capped with its black sombrero
showed above the top of a boulder almost directly opposite where the
scout was standing.
Quick as lightning, Buffalo Bill let fly a bullet at the black hat.
Lawless ducked down just in time to save himself; and, the next
moment, Buffalo Bill himself was obliged to drop, for bullets began
to fly thick and fast.
“Stop your shooting!”
It was the voice of Lawless, and went ringing down the cañon.
Instantly the fusillade ceased.
“Buffalo Bill!” called Lawless.
“What do you want?” asked the scout, keeping under cover.
“You have my girl over there, and if you’ll give her up, we’ll let
you and your pards go, providing you agree to return to Fort Sill and
not go back to Sun Dance.”
Wah-coo-tah, crouching behind the stones, put out her hands and
caught the scout’s arm imploringly.
“No, no!” she breathed.
“You want to sell the girl to some other buck for five ponies, eh?”
called Buffalo Bill, in a tone of contempt.
“It’s none of your business what I want to do. She’s a fiery jade,
and there’s no living in the same lodge with her. Will you give her
up?”
“Certainly not. She doesn’t want to go back to you.”
“I can make you give her up,” stormed Lawless. “The officers at Fort
Sill, if I laid the case before them, would force you to turn the
girl over to her people.”
“You’ll not lay the case before the officers at Sill,” taunted
the scout; “they’d like mighty well to have you come there and
try it. You’re a pretty sort of man to have charge of a girl like
Wah-coo-tah!”
“For the last time”--and Lawless’ voice shook with rage--“are you
going to let me have my daughter?”
“And for the last time. No!” roared the scout.
“Then you’ll never leave this cañon alive. Go on with your shooting,
boys!”
The last words were a command to the members of the gang, and the
crack of weapons again resounded. All the shooting, however, was
a waste of good ammunition. The bullets hissed through the air or
patted harmlessly against the rocks. So long as the fighters kept
themselves hidden there was no danger of casualties.
Changing his position, Buffalo Bill threw himself down at full
length, and looked out around the end of the boulder breastwork that
shielded him and Wah-coo-tah.
What he saw filled him with consternation. While he had been
parleying with Lawless, two of Lawless’ men had left their boulders
and stolen up on the ore-dump. Under the protection of the rock pile,
the two rascals were making for the platform.
Was it their intention to cut the rope that was hanging in the
shaft? the scout asked himself. If it was, and if Nomad or Wild Bill
happened at the moment to be climbing upward, cutting the rope would
drop them downward, and perhaps cause them to meet the doom that had
overtaken the Ponca.
In the hope of keeping the two men from the platform, the scout
concentrated his fire upon the ore-dump. The men on the other side
of it were carrying out their plans warily, and the scout was given
little chance at them.
When they reached the top of the ore-dump, the scoundrels pushed two
boulders onto the platform to shield their bodies from the scout’s
bullets; then, pushing the stones in front of them, they crawled,
snakelike, toward the shaft opening.
The scout’s bullets slapped and hissed against the moving stones, but
without doing any damage to the men behind them. All the scoundrels
laughed. They seemed to understand the scout’s fears and the laugh
was a taunt because they considered that they had baffled him.
Buffalo Bill was just planning a rush back to the ore-dump--a
daredevil charge across the open with every outlaw’s weapon firing at
him--when something happened which he had not looked for.
The stones on the platform were close to the opening, when, with
startling suddenness, old Nomad popped through the hole like a
Jack-in-the-box. He took in the situation at a glance, and dropped
down on the two desperadoes.
One of the men started to jump up and run, but Nomad’s fist shot out
like a battering-ram, and the villain pitched head first down the
rocky side of the dump.
The men across the cañon did not dare shoot at the trapper for fear
of wounding their friends. Nomad understood this, and took full
benefit of the grace allowed him.
The scoundrel who still remained on the dump chanced to be Seth
Coomby. Nomad dropped a heavy knee on Coomby’s chest, and ripped the
revolvers out of his hands. Shoving one revolver into the breast of
his shirt, he picked Coomby up by the scruff of the neck, held him in
front as a breastwork, and started down the slope, firing as he went,
and forcing Coomby ahead of him.
But Nomad was not making for the boulders where the scout had taken
refuge, but for the other side of the cañon, where Lawless and the
rest of his men were doing their fighting.
It was a reckless piece of work on Nomad’s part. The old trapper,
however, was filled with rage at the way Lawless and his men had
treated him. He wanted to play “even,” and was willing to take
chances to do so.
Hardly had Nomad reached the bottom of the ore-dump, when Wild Bill
showed himself on the platform. Whether the outlaws were too much
occupied watching Nomad’s work with Coomby, or whether they were
paralyzed at Wild Bill’s appearance, yet the fact remains that they
did not fire at him.
Coomby’s companion on the ore-dump--none other than the man who has
figured as “Andy”--had dropped one of his revolvers at the time he
was overturned by the old trapper’s fist.
Wild Bill’s quick eye caught sight of the weapon, and he picked it
up, flourished it in the air with a yell, and leaped after Nomad
toward the opposite side of the cañon.
The scout, witnessing the trend of affairs, decided that he ought to
take part in the charge of his pards. Unless the attack was hotly
pressed, neither Nomad nor Wild Bill would come out of the skirmish
alive.
At the very moment when Buffalo Bill threw himself across the
boulders, a thump of horses’ feet came from down the cañon.
“We’re coming, pard!” whooped a shrill, feminine voice.
The scout looked down the gulch and saw Dauntless Dell and Little
Cayuse plying quirt and spur, and hurrying to take part in the combat.
“Hyar comes our other two pards!” jubilated Nomad. “Now, ye varmints,
will ye hunt yer holes?”