THE CURTAIN-ROCK.
The scout, his girl pard, and Wah-coo-tah, it will be recalled, were
left in the level of the Forty Thieves, hurrying, as fast as the
Indian girl’s wound would permit, toward the shaft.
Dell, returning from the drift with a flask of water, was about to
hand the flask to Buffalo Bill when Wah-coo-tah started forward with
a sudden access of strength.
“_Pronto, pronto_,” breathed the girl; “mebbyso I live to fool
Lawless and save um Pa-e-has-ka--mebbyso.”
“What is it?” asked Dell wildly, following the scout and Wah-coo-tah
and listening to the seething roar.
“_Nuzhee Mona, Nuzhee Mona!_” wailed Wah-coo-tah; “him Rain Walker,
Big Water, Flood!”
“Ah!” muttered the scout: “there has been a cloud-burst in the cañon,
and the water is coming down on us!”
“No cloud-burst, Pa-e-has-ka,” said Wah-coo-tah huskily; “_Nuzhee
Mona_ all same lake, close to cañon, high up. Lawless him use
giant-powder, blow away rock, let _Nuzhee Mona_ down into the
cañon----”
The girl broke off abruptly. They had reached the shaft, and
Wah-coo-tah, throwing herself down, tried to pull a boulder away from
the foot of the wall. The task was too much for her strength.
“Quick, Pa-e-has-ka!” she panted.
The scout laid hold of the stone, Dell holding the candle for him to
see, and threw the stone to one side.
“See um iron?” gasped Wah-coo-tah. “My eyes all same go blind, no can
see.”
Dell, her hands shaking under the menace of weird, unknown perils,
held the candle lower.
“Here’s an iron bar, Wah-coo-tah!” cried the scout.
The roar from the cañon was now so great that it was necessary for
him to raise his voice in order to be heard.
“Pull um bar, Pa-e-has-ka,” screamed Wah-coo-tah, “_pronto, pronto_!”
Seizing the bar with both hands, Buffalo Bill gave a long, steady
pull. A screech of rusted machinery followed, and the bar gave
slowly; and slowly, high up toward the top of the shaft, a curtain of
rock obtruded itself across the well, and by degrees closed out the
daylight.
Then, when the bar would yield no more, and not a ray of light
came from above, Buffalo Bill took his hands from the lever and
straightened up.
A swishing roar passed over their heads, and drops of water trickled
down on them.
“Saved!” murmured Dell, leaning nervelessly against the side of the
shaft.
“Aye,” said the scout, as the baffled waters thrashed and tossed
about the ore-dump, “saved in the nick of time, and by a method I had
not dreamed of. That bar, Dell, works a rock curtain near the mouth
of the shaft. By pulling the bar, the curtain is shoved across the
opening, below the platform. When I first saw this mine, I wondered
if it was not in danger of being flooded by a cloud-burst. In order
to avoid the danger, it must be that Lawless contrived the rock
curtain. Was that the way of it, Wah-coo-tah?”
There was no answer from the Indian girl, and the scout looked down,
to discover that she had fallen in a limp heap on the shaft bottom.
“We have neglected her wound too long, Dell,” said the scout. “She
has fainted, I suppose, as she came so near doing while we were on
our way to the shaft. We will get her back to the ‘drift’ and do what
we can for her.”
Picking Wah-coo-tah up in his arms, Buffalo Bill carried her back
along the level and into the “drift.” There she was laid down on the
rocky floor, the scout’s rolled-up coat serving as a pillow for her
head.
While Dell bathed the Indian girl’s face with water, and chafed her
temples, the scout was examining her wound.
“What do you think, Buffalo Bill?” Dell asked, as the scout
straightened up on his knees.
“It’s a bad wound,” he answered, shaking his head. “What the girl
needs is a doctor, and there is not much time to lose. And to think,”
he added, in a fierce undertone, “that it was her own father’s men
who did this! I always knew a squawman was pretty low down, but I
never thought him as mean as that.”
With handkerchiefs and torn cloths they made shift to get a bandage
about Wah-coo-tah’s wound; then they sat beside her and waited for
her to recover consciousness.
“She saved us,” said Dell tremulously, “and it may be that she has
given her life to do it.”
“The girl has a good heart,” returned the scout, “and you might
wonder at that, considering what sort of a father she had.”
“This _Nuzhee Mona_ is a lake, then?” asked Dell.
“I believe, now, that I have heard of such a lake, but this is the
first time I have connected that name with it.”
“I thought Wah-coo-tah said it was the name of an Indian deity.”
“All same,” came softly from the lips of Wah-coo-tah, and the scout
and Dell looked, to see that her eyes had opened. “_Nuzhee Mona_ all
same god, Rain Walker, Flood. You _sabe_?”
“The god of the waters, Wah-coo-tah?” returned the scout.
“Ai,” she answered; “him god of waters and name of lake, ’way up,
alongside cañon. Lawless blow out um rock, and let water come. Him
think Pa-e-has-ka no understand about rock door at top of shaft, and
that _Nuzhee Mona_ come into mine, fill it, strangle scout. Ai, ai!
but we fool um. Lawless shoot Wah-coo-tah so she no tell Pa-e-has-ka.”
“Was it Lawless himself who fired that shot?” demanded Buffalo Bill.
“Ai. Me speak to um first.”
“What did you say to him, Wah-coo-tah?”
“Me say, let Pa-e-has-ka out through secret door with Wah-coo-tah. If
you no let us out, me say, Wah-coo-tah show Pa-e-has-ka how to slide
door across shaft. That make Lawless heap mad, and he shoot. But we
fool um,” she crooned; “Pa-e-has-ka live, and we fool um Lawless. Ah,
ah!”
“How do you feel, Wah-coo-tah?” the scout asked, in a kindly tone.
“Like pretty soon me go to better place, to the hunting-grounds of
all good Cheyennes.”
“No, no, Wah-coo-tah,” whispered Dell, bending down and taking one
of the girl’s hands; “you are going to get well. We shall take you to
a doctor, at Sun Dance, and he will cure you.”
“You like Wah-coo-tah to get well?” the Indian girl asked.
“Yes, yes,” breathed Dell tearfully; “I want you to live so I can
prove to you that I am your friend, always your friend.”
“Mebbyso Yellow Hair talk with two tongues?”
“No, Wah-coo-tah,” said Dell earnestly, “I never talk with two
tongues.”
“Mebbyso; but Wah-coo-tah Injun. If she get well, go back to
Cheyennes, mebbyso her sold again to some Injun she no like. Better
Wah-coo-tah die, better Yellow Hair stay with Pa-e-has-ka, be
Pa-e-has-ka’s pard.”
“Wah-coo-tah,” interposed the scout, “will Lawless and his men stay
in the other part of the mine?”
“No; him leave when him think flood come. Him think _Nuzhee Mona_
come into other part of mine, too, you _sabe_?”
“Then we can get out through that secret door?”
“Ai.”
“The quicker we get out the quicker we can take you to Sun Dance; and
the quicker you get into the doctor’s hands, the more chance there is
of saving your life.”
Wah-coo-tah smiled a little at that.
“You like to save Wah-coo-tah, but Wah-coo-tah no care. Ou, di! Take
me to secret door, Pa-e-has-ka. Me show you how to get through.”
Cody looked at Dell, and nodded. Thereupon Dell picked up the candle,
and the scout gathered the Indian girl in his arms. With the coat
under her arm, Dell led the way along the level to the place where
she and Buffalo Bill had seen the glare breaking through the wall.
Here the scout laid Wah-coo-tah down, took the candle, and hunted
over the wall for the crevice that would mark the edge of the stone
door. So cleverly was the door fitted into the rock that it defied
detection.
“See um big black stone, Pa-e-has-ka?” Wah-coo-tah asked, turning her
head toward the wall.
The scout saw the stone, and laid his hand on it.
“Push,” said the girl.
Cody made ready to use considerable strength, but found that it
was not necessary, for the big stone was so nicely balanced that
it yielded at a touch. The entire stone swung outward, leaving a
ragged gap two feel wide by three feet in height. Beyond the gap was
darkness.
“Lawless gone,” said Wah-coo-tah weakly; “all safe, Pa-e-has-ka. We
go on now. Go on till you see um daylight.”
“That’s our cue, Dell,” said the scout. “The outlaws must all be
gone. If water had come into the mine, the flood would surely have
forced the stone door and let it into the secret level. Lawless and
his men would not dare to remain here. Take the candle, pard, and
lead the way.”
After the scout had again taken Wah-coo-tah in his arms, Dell picked
up the coat and the candle and forced her way through the secret door.
The passage in which the scout and Dell found themselves ran at right
angles with the main level. It was no larger than the passage they
had left, but presently it opened out and formed a sort of chamber.
In this chamber there were evidences that both men and horses had
recently made the place a rendezvous.
“Horses in a mine!” exclaimed the scout. “I wonder how Lawless got
the animals down here?”
“Plenty soon you find um out, Pa-e-has-ka,” murmured Wah-coo-tah.
After leaving the wide part of the passage, the bore narrowed to its
original dimensions, and the floor took the form of a slope.
“We’re climbing!” exclaimed Dell.
“This secret shaft is an incline,” returned the scout. “It’s clear,
now, how the horses got down here. I’m beginning to understand, too,
how it was that Lawless and his men disappeared so mysteriously that
time we thought we had chased them out of the cañon. All they did,
then, was to ride to the top of this incline and hide themselves away
in the underground workings of the Forty Thieves.”
It was a long climb they had to the top of the subterranean slope;
but after a while they saw a glow of daylight ahead of them. The glow
brightened and brightened, until they came out of the inclined shaft
and stood upon a brush-grown shelf jutting out from the cañon wall.
Here the scout put down his burden, and all of them rested and filled
their lungs with the pure outdoor air.
“I never expected to get out of that hole alive,” said the scout. “If
I had known more about the mine than I did, I should not have been so
brash about going into it; but who’d ever have expected to find such
a layout of secret passages and inclined shafts? Lawless did a good
deal of dead work hunting for that lost vein.”
“If we only knew where Nomad and Wild Bill were,” said Dell, “I
should feel easier in my mind.”
The scout’s brow clouded.
“Of course Lawless and his men took them along when they left the
mine.” The scout turned to Wah-coo-tah. “Where would Lawless be apt
to go from here, Wah-coo-tah?” he asked.
“Mebbyso to Medicine Bluff,” the girl answered.
“Then, as soon as I get you to Sun Dance, I’m going to pick up a
few men and ride post-haste for Medicine Bluff. I can’t believe
that Lawless would put Nomad and Wild Bill out of the way; still,
a scoundrel who would shoot his own daughter would be capable of
anything.”
“He would!” averred Dell fervently. “I’m worried about Nomad and Wild
Bill, and we must ride for Medicine Bluff as soon as we can.”
“I wonder just where we are?” said the scout, getting to his feet and
pushing through the bushes to the edge of the shelf.
Dell did not follow but remained beside Wah-coo-tah.
“You tell Wah-coo-tah,” said the Indian girl, as soon as they were
alone, “that you leave Pa-e-has-ka as soon as Wah-coo-tah get you out
of mine; and you say,” the girl added sharply, “that you no talk with
the double tongue.”
“If you insist that I leave the scout and his pards,” said Dell, “I
will. I have a ranch in Arizona, and my mother is there. I intended
to leave my pards very soon, anyway, but I should like to stay with
them until Lawless is captured and forced to pay the penalty of his
crimes.”
“You go then?”
“Yes.”
“Then Wah-coo-tah glad you stay. Mebbyso Yellow Hair got good heart,
and Wah-coo-tah got bad heart? _Quien sabe?_”
“No, no, Wah-coo-tah,” whispered Dell, “you’ve got a good heart, and
you’re a brave girl; only there are some things you don’t understand.”
She took the girl’s hand, bent over, and touched her lips to her
forehead. Wah-coo-tah’s eyes softened under the caress.
“Me no hate you any more,” the Indian girl whispered. “Wah-coo-tah
all same Yellow Hair’s friend.”
Just then the scout came back from the edge of the shelf and noticed,
with much satisfaction, the friendliness of the two girls toward each
other.
“We’re on a little ledge, half-way up the cañon wall,” he announced.
“From the edge of the shelf I could look down on the ore-dump and
shaft of the Forty Thieves. The flood has been ’way over the top of
the dump, for the platform, and the stones are dripping wet, but the
water is receding rapidly.”
“How are we to get away from here?” asked Dell.
“There’s a bridle-path to the top of the cañon and another one to the
bottom, but I think we had better get out by the top of the cañon
and take that route to Sun Dance. There’s no telling how much water
we would find between here and the camp if we tried to follow the
bottom of the gulch. Our first move must be to get the horses from
the gully. I suppose it will be best to leave you here, Dell, to stay
with Wah-coo-tah, while I go for the horses.”
“I will take care of Wah-coo-tah, pard,” returned Dell, pressing the
Indian girl’s hand affectionately as she spoke. “You ought to find
Cayuse in the gully.”
“Wherever the horses are, I think I am pretty certain to find the
boy. Whenever he is told to do a thing, he generally does it, so I
feel confident he has stayed with the live stock. I won’t be gone
long,” the scout added, as he took to the bridle-path and began the
ascent.
In mounting to the top of the cañon the scout was able to observe
below him the extent of the flood which had been turned into the
defile by the blasting operations of Captain Lawless.
A line on the opposite wall of the gulch showed him the height the
water had reached, and indicated how quickly the Forty Thieves would
have been flooded had not the curtain of rock been thrown across the
top of the shaft.
He shivered as his imagination pictured the plight of Dell and
Wah-coo-tah and himself, down in the level, with the water pouring in
upon them, and Lawless and his men keeping them back from the secret
door with their rifles.
“It’s a long road that has no turning,” thought the scout grimly,
“and Lawless has run up a score which I shall call upon him to
settle. When I am done with him, I shall come back to the Forty
Thieves and stay out the three consecutive days and nights; then,
when I have earned the deed, I shall turn the property over to
Wah-coo-tah--if she lives; and if she does not live, then it shall go
to Wah-coo-tah’s mother, the Cheyenne woman.”
This procedure was strictly in line with the scout’s generous nature.
As for staying in Sun Dance Cañon and developing the Forty Thieves,
the very thought of it brought a smile to his lips.
He could not imagine himself turning from the free life of the plains
and mountains to the narrow confines of a mine and the life of a
miner.
First, however, he must trail down Captain Lawless and rescue old
Nomad and Wild Bill. He would not allow himself to suppose that
Lawless would deal cold-bloodedly with his pards, and thought only of
pursuing the outlaw to Medicine Bluff and effecting a rescue.
While he was climbing upward, and turning these matters over in his
mind, he little dreamed that within a few minutes Chance was to
strike one more unexpected note in the odd tune she had recently been
playing for his benefit.
Yet so it fell out when, presently, Buffalo Bill stepped from the
path he had been following onto level ground at the brink of the
cañon.
What he saw first was a dead Cheyenne; beyond the Cheyenne was a
group consisting of five men and a boy. The men were in close and
animated conversation, and did not see the scout.
To his amazement, the scout discovered that two of the men were Nomad
and Wild Bill; the other three were Lonesome Pete, Hank Tenny, and
Henry Blake. The boy, of course, was Cayuse.
“Buffler has been my pard fer many a year,” old Nomad was saying, in
a husky voice, “an’ I was hopin’, when he cashed in, thet fate might
let the pair o’ us be standin’ shoulder ter shoulder, so thet we both
mout begin ther long trail tergether. I’ve never felt wuss in my life
than what I does this minit, Buffler!” and the old trapper lifted
his face skyward, “whyever didn’t ye wait fer yer old pard Nick?”
“How long do you want me to wait, Nick?” called the scout.
For an instant the entire group seemed paralyzed; then Nomad turned
slowly around, stared for a moment, let off a cry that was half-joy
and half-consternation, and galloped toward the scout with both hands
outstretched.