This dreadful discovery told the scout that Indians had held up the
coach. Yet he wondered if it had been done for robbery as well as
murder? The officer he recognized as Captain Hinkley, the paymaster;
the soldiers were his guard. He was a week ahead of his time; yet he
had not managed to get safely through.
The fact that Indians had done the deed, however, disturbed Buffalo
Bill. He could not understand it. The marks of half a dozen unshod
ponies proved that his first suspicion was correct. Some of Oak Heart’s
young braves might have done this. It was true, too, that the driver
and soldiers had all been shot with arrows.
“How do I know that robbery has been committed at all?” muttered
Buffalo Bill, and he leaped off his horse and made search inside the
stage.
It was revealed at once that the marauders must have been frightened
off before they came upon Captain Hinkley’s strong-box and bags of coin.
Fear of being caught in the act of murder and rapine usually rides
the redskin to undue haste. Had there been whites with this gang of
red robbers--either Boyd Bennett himself or any of his men--Cody knew
that no small matter would have frightened them away before the object
of the hold-up of the stage was accomplished. And the presence of the
treasure-chest proved that the marauders must have been driven off.
By what, or whom? Surely his own coming had not done this! Yet the
thought gave the scout food for serious reflection. Perhaps the reds
might be lurking near and would descend again upon the spot and finish
their job by gathering in _his_ scalp as well as that of the driver,
the paymaster, and his guards.
He did not touch the money, therefore, but appeared likewise to find
nothing in the coach. He even went back to his horse, mounted into the
saddle, and set off along the trail at a lope as though proposing to
go for help. He had remembered that there was a sandy piece of ground
not far away, and here his horse’s hoofbeats would be deadened. As
soon as he reached this he halted, dismounted, led his horse up among
the rocks, and approached the scene of the catastrophe with great
circumspection. Not a bird did he raise by this maneuver.
“They’ve vamosed!” declared Buffalo Bill, with confidence. “A scalping
party of reds, and they knew nothing about the money. So it appears,
at least. Yet, from all I’ve heard, Bennett is hand and glove with Oak
Heart’s people. He’ll hear of this without fail. Now, what had I better
do?”
He spent little time in cogitating, however. Cody was a man who made up
his mind instinctively, rather than by any slow process of reasoning.
He was prompt on this occasion to come to a conclusion.
The party of Indians who had done this hold-up act were not in the
immediate vicinity. It was of some moment to Cody, however, to
learn how far they had gone, and in what direction. He rustled the
treasure-box out of the stage and lugged it up into the rocks, where he
found a hiding-place that would do for the nonce. Then he picked up
the trail of the redskins afoot and hurried after them.
Beyond the nearest hill the party had fled down into a well-watered
valley which the scout knew led to a gorge, which was about the
shortest way to Oak Heart’s camp. If Boyd Bennett and his gang happened
to be with the Indians, saw the scalps, and guessed who the reds had
murdered, he would be here after the treasure-box in short order.
Buffalo Bill believed that the reds were aiming for this gorge; yet
they might have had another route in view. To make sure, he cut across
the valley on a straight line for the mouth of the gorge to see if the
trail was marked there, as well.
The middle of the valley was a swamp, and one that the scout had never
been through. He had no idea that it was so dangerous a place until he
had gotten some rods into it. Then, in leaping from a tussock to what
looked like a solid log, he found the log, hammock, and all, sinking
under him, and there was no safe spot ahead on which he could alight.
“Great Scott! I’d better go around, after all,” he muttered, in
disgust, and turned gingerly on the sinking log.
And then, to his amazement, he saw that the comparatively safe place on
which he had last stood had disappeared! As he leaped it had toppled
over and the quagmire had swallowed it instantly. All he could see was
a long stretch of some ten or twelve feet of stinking, dimpling black
muck!
“However did I get over that place?” grunted the scout, in surprise.
“Why, I’m due to go ten feet under the surface maybe, if I jump!”
And it quickly became apparent that he might go that depth under the
surface if he didn’t jump, too. The old log sank lower and lower, until
finally the liquid mud lapped over it completely and began to rise
around his ankles. The log was only about eight feet long. He crept to
the end which lay nearest solid ground, but even then it was a good
eight-foot jump, and from such an unstable footing that seemed well
nigh impossible of accomplishment.
Besides, the log began to tip. Where he stood it sank deeper and
deeper, and with a splash of the filthy mire the other end shot into
sight. Cody had to leap to the middle of the stick quickly to save
himself from toppling over completely into the mud. There he wavered
a moment until he caught his balance, and then, with grimness, looked
about for escape.
He couldn’t hope for any help. Indeed, he would have been more troubled
than delighted to see any other person than himself in this swamp at
just this moment. The matter of the pay-chest rested heavily on his
mind. However he escaped from this situation it must be by his own
exertions, and those alone.
To try to wade to a more solid spot was to court possible extinction.
To sink slowly into this muck and be smothered by it was a horrible
thought. It chilled even the scout’s blood!
And, meantime, the log was sinking steadily. Inch by inch it was being
submerged, and the mire was crawling up Buffalo Bill’s boot-legs.
The swamp was quite heavily wooded, so he was hidden from the view of
anybody on the eminences around about. And, as he cast a worried glance
about at the heights in fear that he might have attracted attention,
he suddenly beheld the end of a tree branch almost over his head.
“Ah!” exclaimed he, and his eyes glistened as he followed the trend of
this branch with their glance.
Of course, the branch was altogether too slight above his head to
bear his weight, even could he reach it. But it promised something.
He glanced along its length several times to the parent trunk some
twenty feet away, and then began operations. There was, indeed, no time
for him to lose, for the log was a good bit under the surface of the
dimpling mud by this.
The fronded end of the branch was much too high for him to reach it
with his hands; nor could he pull it down with his gun. Indeed, he
got rid of that implement at once--it only weighed him down into the
mire the faster--by tossing it into a crotch of the branch, where it
fortunately chanced to catch and hang. He removed his belt, slipped the
cartridges into the side pockets of his coat, tied his handkerchief to
one end of the belt to make it longer, and then fastened one of his
pistols to the handkerchief to weight the end. Swinging this weighted
line, he cast the pistol about the small twigs above his head. The
weapon caught in them, and gradually he drew the end of the branch down
within the grasp of his hands.
He held this and fastened on his belt and gun again, buttoning his
pockets so as not to lose his ammunition. The end of the branch was a
bushy fan of small twigs and leaves. He could pull it down into the
mud, and the green wood was tough and strong; but there was a big
chance, when he bore any weight upon it, of the limb tearing off at the
trunk.
However, swarming up this branch seemed the only way of escape from
the smothering mud which already was as high as his knees. Its suction
was terrific, too. When he flung himself forward on the branch he could
scarcely drag his boots out of the mire.
But he fought on desperately, dragging up first one booted foot and
then the other, and, although the limb cracked and he lay almost flat
in the mud at first, he finally wormed his way up the branch to its
bigger part. There he straddled it and waited to get his breath, and to
scrape off some of the mud.
“A little more,” he puffed, “and I’d have gone down in that, and nobody
would have been the wiser. Ah!”
He halted in his speech and stared down into the mud. An idea had
smitten him, and he turned it over and over in his mind while he worked
his way along the limb and descended to the foot of the tree.
He returned as quickly as possible to the edge of the swamp, and was
contented thereafter to follow the trail of the redskins direct. No
more short cuts! He found in time that his early suspicions had been
correct. The trail led to the head of the gorge, and he was bound to
believe that the murderers were some of Oak Heart’s Sioux.
“Boyd Bennett will learn of the hold-up inside of twenty-four hours--if
not sooner. It’s up to me to hide that money where he won’t be able to
find it.”
With this decision uppermost in his mind, he put into practise the idea
that had been suggested to him as he sat on the tree branch. Returning
to the temporary hiding-place of the money, he carried the chest to the
edge of the swamp, endeavoring to leave as little trail as possible as
he went. He had brought his lariat with him, and when he reached one
of the most treacherous-looking pools of mud, he fastened the lariat
about the box and lowered it into the depths. The quagmire sucked the
box out of sight almost instantly.
Then Cody tied the end of the lariat to a tree-root under the surface
of the muck, and so effectually disposed of the treasure where
nobody but himself--or some person whom he guided--could find it. He
returned to the scene of the hold-up and prepared to get away with the
driverless stage instantly.
He placed the dead man inside the stage, tied Chief to one of the
leaders, and, mounting to the box, drove hurriedly along the trail.
Being alone, he could not drive the horses and guard the treasure, too;
so he had hidden it, intending to bring back a file of troopers from
the fort later and pick it up.
He had not driven two miles along the trail when, loud and threatening,
rose a voice from the rocks beside the road, which uttered these
significant words:
“Live or die--yours the choice! Up with your hands there!”