TWO SHOTS.
Black Bill would have talked all night had the scout allowed him to
do so; but Cody checked him again, dressed his wound and feet, and
gave him a little more to eat, after which he made him go to sleep.
The scout looked to the comfort of his horses, and then, wrapping his
blankets about him, lay down to rest.
At dawn, Buffalo Bill arose, built a fire, cooked a substantial
breakfast, having caught several fine fish from the stream, and then
he awoke the negro, who was still sleeping soundly.
Black Bill was then allowed to eat all he wished, and the scout gave
him a change of his clothing to put on, and looked after his injuries.
“Now, Black Bill, you are not fit even to ride, but you soon will
be. This is a good camp for you, and you will be comfortable. I will
leave you my pack horse, make you comfortable, give you plenty of
food and ammunition for your weapons, and I’ll kill a deer before I
go. Then you can fish and take it easy.”
“Whar is you goin’, Massa Buf’ler Bill?”
“To Fort Aspen, with all speed, for I shall get there a number of
negro scouts I want with me, the ropes John Hill says we will need,
pack horses well laden with provisions, and I’ll be back here in four
days.”
“Yas, sah.”
“Now, I do not think you will see any Indians here, for they have
skipped for their villages, and this camp is on no trail. If you
should, you must mount my pack horse and get away, for I will leave
my compass, and you must keep directly west.”
“Yas, sah.”
“It might be that the white men may be trailing you; but, if so, you
must make your escape, and be on the watch for any danger.”
“Yas, sah, I kin do pretty well ter take keer o’ myself.”
“I don’t doubt it. In four days you will be well enough to ride, and
we’ll start for that valley you have told me of, and get those people
out of their trouble.”
Half an hour after, Buffalo Bill, having made his black comrade
thoroughly comfortable, mounted his horse and departed on his trail
to the fort.
Black Bill looked after him wistfully as long as he was in sight,
but, looking back, the scout saw him wave a farewell, and muttered:
“I am sorry to leave him, yet I must do so, as I can do nothing else,
for he could not stand the ride to the fort and back, and lives
depend on quick work, if I am not mistaken.”
And the scout put his horse at a swift and steady pace.
But he had not ridden many miles when suddenly he saw an Indian bound
from the ground and spring to the shelter of a tree, his bow and
arrows in hand.
It was a long shot, and the scout had to fire quickly, and did so. It
seemed as though there was a double report; but the redskin fell, and
no others were visible.
Cody knew that he had killed the Indian, and rode toward him,
dismounted, and bent over the body, when suddenly a human form
confronted him and a voice said:
“Pard, I guesses I’ll take the scalp o’ this Injun, an’ as I holds
ther drop on you, ye’d better be kinder discreetlike.”
Buffalo Bill was certainly caught off his guard by the appearance of
the stranger upon the scene where he least expected to see a human
being, unless a stray Indian.
Yet it was a white man, and certainly an odd-looking one. He was
dressed in rudely tanned buckskin from head to foot, for he wore a
cap of that material, ornamented with the tail of a fox for a tassel.
He was a man of large size, muscular build, and looked hard as a pine
knot, while his hair was long, unkempt, and iron-gray, and his beard
short and grizzly, half hiding a face by no means prepossessing in
the features that were visible.
The stranger was armed with an old rifle, a muzzle-loader, a revolver
of rather ancient manufacture, a couple of single-barrel pistols,
and a large bowie knife, while at his back hung a long bow and two
quivers of arrows.
The eyes that gazed upon Buffalo Bill with a triumphant leer were
vicious, small, and glittering with hate, that seemed their natural
expression.
He held his revolver upon Buffalo Bill to cover his heart, and seemed
to feel that he was wholly master of the situation.
“Well, who in thunder are you, you old sinner?” demanded Buffalo
Bill, seemingly not in the slightest degree taken aback by the sudden
appearance of one that seemed to be a foe.
“I are ther Bad Man o’ ther Big Horn,” was the cool reply.
“The what?” and Bill smiled.
“Ther Bad Man o’ ther Big Horn.”
“You don’t mean it?”
“I do.”
“Well, you do look as if you could get away with a big horn.”
“Look a-hyur, stranger pard, is yer pokin’ fun at me?” angrily asked
the man.
“No, you are pokin’ that old gun at me,” was the cool response.
“Who is you, anyhow?” asked the man, struck with the superb bearing
and handsome, fearless face of the scout.
“Sitting Bull,” answered Bill, most innocently.
“Do yer take me fer a fool?”
“Like as not you are one of the renegades said to belong to his
tribe,” was the bold remark of the scout.
“No, but I are friendly with ther Injuns.”
“That means you dare not live among your own race, for you look as
though you might have been a white man once.”
The basilisk eyes of the stranger fairly blazed at this, and his brow
grew dark with rage, while he answered quickly:
“Ef I are, yer’ll never live ter tell thet yer seen me.”
“I’ll stake that I do. Come, put up your money, or make no threats.”
“Waal, you is a bold one, and I’d like ter know yer handle.”
“The boys in camp call me Buffalo Bill.”
Instantly the man’s face changed again, growing livid with passion,
while he hissed forth:
“You is Bill Cody, is you?”
“When I am at home, that is my name,” was the reply, and Bill
continued: “Now tell me your name, for the more I see of your face
the more I feel we have met before.”
“We have.”
“What deviltry were you in when I saw you last, old man?”
“I’ll tell yer jist what I were doing then: It were a long time ago,
and you was a mere boy then, and you was guide fer a train I went ter
rob one night, and----”
“You are Ginger Sam, by Jove!” cried Buffalo Bill, recalling the
man’s face, after nearly twenty years.
“Yep.”
“I remember you now, you miserable old sinner, and how you and your
gang hired as teamsters to the train and intended to massacre all
hands one night and get the booty.”
“Thet’s so; but you overheard two o’ ther boys talkin’, and ther’
were hangin’ done by ther train people, and I’d hev gone ther same
way if I hadn’ lit out. Yer thwarted me then, Bill Cody, and I’ve
heerd o’ yer doin’ big things o’ late on these hyur borders, an’ I
intend ter cut yer days short.”
“And I have heard how you played your old tricks of deviltry until
you could not live in a border settlement, and here is where you came
to hide your ugly head, was it?”
“Yas, and it’s better than hangin’.”
“You are a bad citizen, Ginger Sam,” said Bill Cody, with a light
laugh, although the man still kept him covered with his revolver.
“I’m a citizen thet shall take in Buf’ler Bill, fer ye’ve no business
in these hyur parts, and, hevin’ comed hyur, I’ll see that yer
remain, fer I’m ther Bad Man o’ ther Big Horn, I told yer.”
“Do you see that dead Indian lying there?” asked Bill.
“I do.”
“Well, you had better spend your time burying him than in killing me,
for it will be more profitable business.”
The outlaw was astounded at the cool nerve displayed by Buffalo Bill
in his danger, and could not understand his light, bantering tone. He
meant to kill Cody, there was no doubt; but as a cat will play with a
mouse to torture it, he wished to make Buffalo Bill suffer terror and
despair, so he delayed firing the fatal shot, feeling that he had the
scout wholly at his mercy.
“I kilt that Injun.”
“Why, I shot him myself!” said Buffalo Bill. “What a liar you are!”
“I tell yer I was jist leavin’ ther timber when I seen thet Injun,
hevin’ got sight o’ me, I s’pose. So I cracks away, an’ I seen
him flop over an’ then lie still; but I lays close, fer I thought
t’others mou’t be near, an’ then I seen you come out o’ thet timber
from this p’int.
“I flanked yer, and I’ve been lookin’ at yer, an’ now yer says you
kilt ther red.”
“And I tell you the truth, and I can prove it.”
“How kin you?”
“Where did you aim to hit him?”
“In the heart.”
“Well, look and see if there are two bullet wounds in his body, for I
heard your shot, I remember now, and have no doubt but that you fired
at him; but he was dying when you did so. Look for the two wounds.”
The man stooped to do so, and, with the bound of a panther, Buffalo
Bill was upon him.