After a night of uneasy repose, in which the thoughts engendered by his
first sight of the Mad Hunter’s face had ridden him like a nightmare,
Buffalo Bill was determined to make a thorough search for the maniac.
Had he not believed the evening before that the man was likely to
remain unconscious until roused by the efforts of the surgeon, he would
have begged Captain Keyes to let him stay by the maniac until help
could come. He was deeply disappointed when he and Jack Omohondreau
could not find the giant.
In the morning he had searched patiently, struck the trail of the
madman, and, as the sergeant reported, had started at once to follow
and run the maniac down. He had brought his horse, and having left the
soldiers, he mounted Chief and followed the big footprints of the wild
man at a round trot for some distance.
How seriously the man was wounded, Cody did not know; but his quarry
did not seem to try to hide his trail. Straight along the ridge it led,
then down into the little valley the scout had ridden across the night
before, and so up the range of hills on the other side. Something about
the walking of the big man puzzled the scout greatly, and suddenly
Buffalo Bill spurred his horse to the summit of a high hill, that he
might take a survey of the country over which it seemed the madman
might pass.
The soldiers were under way now, and, first of all, Cody saw them
traversing a defile at one side, up which they had come from the
bivouac of the past night. A steep bluff towered beside them where
they were then marching as Buffalo Bill came out upon the back-bone of
the range.
The course he had taken in following the madman’s trail had brought
the scout out ahead of the marching column. But it was not upon them
that his gaze became fastened. Instead, a single moving object upon the
summit of the bluff in the shadow of which the soldiers marched held
his attention. This object was more than a mile ahead of the soldiery,
and would never be noticed from the valley below.
In an instant Buffalo Bill divined the identity of the moving object,
and the nature of the work which engaged its attention. The ridge of
land on which he stood was unbroken to the bluff itself. He set spurs
to Chief and raced along the highlands, knowing that he would not
likely be seen by the soldiers, and therefore must do alone what he
could to avert the catastrophe which he saw imminent.
Thwarted the night before when he sought the life of Captain Keyes, the
Mad Hunter was trying to compass a worse crime. The moving form Buffalo
Bill knew to be the maniac, and he saw that he was gathering huge rocks
into a pile, which he proposed to push over upon the soldiers as they
passed below the bluff!
It was a fiendish plan, and well worthy of the man’s insane cunning.
Buffalo Bill spurred on, and came to a place not many yards behind the
Mad Hunter without the latter’s being aware of his presence, so intent
was he in the work.
Leaving his horse and rifle, the scout, with soft tread and every sense
alert, crept up behind the busy lunatic. He saw that the Mad Hunter
had put aside his own arms, the better to toil at his horrid trap.
With a single shot from his revolver the scout might have dropped the
maniac dead, and so relieved the world of a dangerous creature--a being
neither man nor brute. But the scout did not wish to hurt the giant.
Finally, without being discovered, the scout stood within twenty feet
of the Mad Hunter. His eyes were as fierce as a wolf’s, his hands
opened and shut with nervous clutches, and his lips moved continuously
as he whispered to himself. Yet something familiar in the contour of
the poor creature’s face held Cody spellbound. He was moved as he had
been the night before when he had first looked upon the features of the
wild man.
Nearer and nearer drew the column of soldiers, for through a gap in the
edge of the bluff Cody could mark their progress. Captain Keyes and his
officers, and Texas Jack, rode ahead. The madman prepared to tip his
monument of rocks over upon their devoted heads!
Suddenly the Mad Hunter picked up a great stone--one that the scout was
sure no two ordinary men could lift--and, picking his victim on the
plain below, was about to fling it down. Cody quickly dashed across
the intervening space, and, revolver in hand, tapped the madman on the
shoulder.
With a sudden inspiration the scout shouted into the man’s ear a name
he had not spoken himself for a dozen years--the name of a man who,
until the night before, he had believed long since dead.
The Mad Hunter turned in a flash. He dropped the rock. He stared at the
scout with wondering gaze. His eyes grew somber as the light of insane
rage died out of them. He whispered at last:
“Who--who calls me by that name? Speak!”
Trembling violently, he gazed upon the scout with some shadow of reason
struggling to dawn in his expression. It was elusive--fleeting--yet the
scout knew that he had touched a chord of memory that shook the man to
the foundation of his being.
“Who speaks that name after all these years?” cried the madman again.
“I am Bill Cody--Cody, your old pal. Cody, the man you knew on the Rio
Grande!” exclaimed the scout, his own voice shaking, for the discovery
he had made passed the bounds of reason.
The strange being shook his head slowly.
“No. You may be whom you say; but the man you spoke of first is
dead--dead--a long time dead!”
Buffalo Bill, however, was gaining confidence in his discovery all the
time.
“You’re the man! I know you are. Think, man! Send back your memory to
those old times. Remember the work we did together. Remember--remember
your wife--your child----”
With a shriek like nothing human, with a face that changed in a flash
to that of a demoniac, the Mad Hunter hurled himself, bare-handed, at
the scout’s throat.
“Fiend! Fiend from the pit!” he yelled. “You have come to torment me
and taunt me! Ah! for long have I escaped your taunts; but now you have
returned!”
His heartrending cry almost unmanned the scout. He saw that he had
touched the wrong chord with the madman. Reminded of the loss of his
wife and child, the victim of this awful fate had been thrown into a
paroxysm of rage.
For an instant Buffalo Bill hesitated. That hesitation came near
to costing him his life. The maniac was upon him and seized his
pistol-hand before he could make up his mind to fire at his old friend.
The madman’s other hand tightened on the scout’s throat. They swayed
upon the edge of the precipice.
Seconds dragged like hours in that struggle. Buffalo Bill had met more
than his match in this wild being. Suddenly he heard a cry below:
“Hold, Cody! for God’s sake, hold!”
It was Captain Keyes’ voice. It inspired the sinking scout to make one
final and desperate effort. He half-tore him self free of the giant’s
clutch.
“Steady! Texas Jack has got the drop on him!” yelled the voice of Keyes
again.
Instantly there came the sharp crack of a rifle. The maniac jumped
slightly, and his awful grip loosened. The scout tore himself
completely away, spattered by the maniac’s blood.
The latter whirled about, back to the brink of the bluff, clutched
helplessly at the air with his great hands, and pitched down the
declivity. He was dead before he struck the bottom--a heap of broken
bones and bruised flesh!
Texas Jack mounted the cliff to see if the scout was all right. He
found Cody wiping the blood from his face, and very grave of look.
“Had to shoot him, old man. ’Twas you or him, yuh know,” said the
brother scout.
“I know it, Jack. I can only thank you. But I am sorry--bitterly sorry.
I knew that man when he was a right good fellow. Ask Captain Keyes to
give him decent burial, and to mark the grave--mark it with the letter
‘D.’”
With these words Cody shook hands with his pard and hastened away to
where Chief was quietly feeding. In a moment he was riding hard away
from the spot where the terrible tragedy had taken place.
Captain Keyes complied with Cody’s request, but was sorry that the
scout had evidently gone on his mission of death--for the officer could
look at the visit to the Indian encampment in no other light.
He had divided his force, as he said he should, and the vanguard
went on to the coulée and buried the dead. All the redskins had been
removed, and the place was deserted of the living. But when they came
to search for Dick Danforth’s body, intending to remove it to the fort
with them, it was not to be found. The brave lieutenant, for whose
scalp Buffalo Bill had pleaded with White Antelope, had disappeared
from the field of battle.