Buffalo Bill’s Death Message

CHAPTER IV. DOWN THE CAÑON .

At the upper end of the cañon of Lost River the water is smooth and the rocky banks are low enough to permit a canoe to be launched without much trouble.

The canoe was lowered to the water by means of ropes, and into it, when it was anchored, was put the arms and ammunition, together with the food supply, and other things, which the scout had decided to take. He had provided amply, for he did not know just where he was going, what he should meet, nor how long he should be gone.

When the four men were in the canoe it sank low in the water, yet it was still quite buoyant, and, though a large canoe, easily handled.

Klamath John took the bow paddle and pushed the canoe away from the rocky shore.

The canoe swung lightly along in the quiet current, but soon the water quickened its pace and the boat began to dance on its way, still with feathery lightness, yet at a speed that made careful paddle work necessary.

Buffalo Bill crouched just behind Klamath John, where he could watch him. The scout dipped his paddle with ease and skill, his eyes on the current ahead, where at intervals rocks showed. Behind him was Cudjo, while Flynn handled a paddle in the stern.

“Whoosh!” yelled Flynn, as the rocky walls began 29to shoot past. “An’ it’s now that we do be goin’ some.”

“Starboard!” yelled Klamath John. “Put ’er to starboard!”

He threw his strength on the oar, and was aided by Buffalo Bill. The canoe veered and whisked by the big rock that had seemed to leap out of the water to meet it.

Higher and still higher rose the frowning cañon walls, until the cañon grew dark as twilight. And still the light canoe sped ever faster, the walls speeding by at a pace that soon became frightful. The river roared in its narrow channel, and at times the torn water rose and flashed into whitecaps.

The canoe soon plunged into the cañon rapids. Buffalo Bill had looked down upon those rapids as well as he could from the tops of the walls, and had decided that, though swift, and even dangerous, the canoe could navigate them. But they were even swifter and wilder than he had thought.

“She gets quieter farther down,” Klamath John shouted, by way of encouragement. “Just hold her to it, and we’ll go through all right.”

“Whoosh!” howled Flynn. “But this is an iligant adventure. Gold hunters, is it? By me sowl, if we git through this, we’ll be airnin’ all the gold we’ll git.”

Yet the Irishman was now in his element. Adventure was as the breath of his nostrils. He had chafed at the dullness of the town of Klamath. This suited him, and he hoped for even better things beyond.

But the darky who crouched on the thwart in front 30of him, though he clutched his paddle and tried to obey the commands of Buffalo Bill, was sending up a prayer for safety, while his teeth were chattering and a grayish shade seemed to have crept into the black of his face. Cudjo was heartily wishing himself well out of it.

Yet if the occupants of the canoe had desired to retreat, that was now impossible. The only thing that could be done was to hold the canoe in the channel, as near the center as possible, and let it drive, guiding it as skillfully as possible round rocks and other obstructions.

A half mile farther down the stream seemed to be sown with rocks. They were everywhere, and they appeared almost to leap at the bobbing bow of the canoe, as if bent on splitting it, and dragging it down.

But Buffalo Bill and Klamath John were practiced canoemen, and they sent the canoe round every obstruction with such skill and good judgment that its sides were not even grazed.

For two miles this terrific pace held. Then before them they saw where the stream forked, split into two branches by a great rock.

A surge of green water slipped by on each side of this sharp wedge of granite and went plunging on, to become lost soon in the mist that blanketed the surface of the wild river.

“Which channel?” roared Klamath John, poising his paddle in hesitation.

“The right!” Buffalo Bill shouted back. “The letter said the right!”

31“Aye! So it did! The right it is!”

He dipped and pulled, and the scout did the same, their efforts seconded by the negro and the Irishman.

The wedge of granite rose right before the canoe, and it seemed the frail shell would dash against it; then the canoe slipped past, and went plunging down the right channel, where the waves frothed and roared and the mist hung heavily.

The speed of the canoe became even more rapid now. It quivered and reeled under the impact of waves that slid from one black granite wall to the other and back again, and there were moments when it seemed that it would be dashed into splinters against these walls.

Klamath John began to show evidences of fright, while hitherto he had been as cool and courageous as the dauntless scout.

The mist lifted somewhat, and then, straight ahead, was beheld a black opening, toward which the canoe sped with arrowy swiftness.

Klamath John appeared to lose his head when he saw that black hole.

“Cody, we’ve taken the wrong channel!” he yelled, and he half rose to his feet. “We’re dead men! We made a mistake back there. We’re in Lost River! Good heavens, we’re in Lost River!”

He dropped his paddle, which the scout caught, thus keeping it from going overboard.

“Sit down!” the scout shouted at him. “Sit down, or you’ll have us all into the water!”

32Klamath John did not obey. He stood up, swaying about in the plunging canoe, rendering the task of guiding it difficult, as well as threatening it with destruction.

“Sit down!” Buffalo Bill yelled at him.

The situation was so desperate that when Klamath John did not sit down, the scout caught him by the coat and hurled him down.

Klamath John was up again instantly, swaying about and making the canoe lurch so violently that it was in danger of capsizing.

But a remarkable revelation had come, for as Klamath John fell the dark mustache and imperial was torn from his face, revealing youthful and unbearded features.

The disclosure was almost paralyzing, for Klamath John’s disguise had been so exceedingly good and clever that until that minute even the sharp eyes of Buffalo Bill had been deceived by it.

“Sit down!” the scout yelled again.

“We is all dead men!” Cudjo shrieked. He was staring at the beardless face of Klamath John, the paddle had dropped from his nerveless fingers, and he acted as if he meant to leap out of the boat.

“Shoot the divil!” Mickey Flynn yelled.

But Mickey did not forget his paddle, and for the first minute in which that stupefying surprise lasted, the strong young Irishman did almost as much as the scout in keeping the canoe from being hurled to destruction.

“So, you’re a fraud, eh!” the scout shouted. “Well, 33if we’re in Lost River and are going to death, you’ll go with us!”

Klamath John seemed to lose his head as that black hole of a tunnel was brought close at hand. He stood up again, balancing himself, as if he thought of jumping over into the water. He threw down his hat, snatched from his head a wig of long hair, howled as if he had suddenly become an insane devil, and refused to obey the orders of the scout.

Buffalo Bill lifted his paddle, while his other hand stole back as if to get out his revolver for the purpose of shooting Klamath John. But a violent lurching of the canoe caused him to grip the paddle again and thrust it into the boiling stream.

“Sit down!” he yelled, in desperation. “You lunatic, sit down!”

The dark hole of the tunnel was right before them now. Into that hole the river rushed with a roar that was frightful.

Mickey Flynn and Buffalo Bill were bending to their paddles, straining until the stout ash blades bent as if they would break, straining to hold the canoe steady and to keep it in the center of the current. They had no time to give to Klamath John. Cudjo was but a bit of helpless lumber. Overcome by terror, he had sunk down in the bottom of the canoe, where, crouching on his knees, he prayed frantically.

Klamath John yelled again as the canoe shot for the black hole, which it did as if it were a race horse rushing to leap an obstruction.

As Klamath John yelled in that wild way, he sprang 34straight out into the air. He clutched something that swung dangling in the mist over the mouth of the tunnel.

Buffalo Bill saw that it was a rope, and that Klamath John had seized it and was drawing himself up hand over hand. He heard Klamath John yell again, in a different key—a yell that seemed to speak of triumph—and then the canoe went into the dark hole, rushing to apparent destruction.

“Hold hard!” Buffalo Bill yelled to Mickey Flynn.

“Har-rd it is!” Flynn screeched back. “Kape her in the middle! Kape her in the middle! Pl’ase goodness, if we’re goin’ into the cinter of the airth we’re goin’ in a hurry.”

CHAPTER V. THROUGH THE TUNNEL.

The roar of the stream was much increased as the canoe shot into the natural rock tunnel. The walls caught and threw it back with tenfold power. The darkness was terrifying.

As the canoe sped on its arrowy way into the darkness, Buffalo Bill crouched in the bow, trying to penetrate the gloom. Now and then the white spray that boiled about some half-sunken rock could be seen, and the canoe steered past it.

Occasionally he shouted a command to Flynn, but he doubted if in that mad turmoil of sound the plucky young Irishman heard him.

The minutes seemed like hours, and how long that terrifying voyage lasted the scout did not know.

With a jerk and a thump the canoe scraped over some sunken object. A small hole had been torn in its bottom, near the prow, and the water began to come in over the scout’s feet. Apparently the end of the wild journey was at an end, for it was clear the canoe could not now live many minutes.

The scout tried to block the rent partially by thrusting his foot against it, but still the water came in, and the exertions he put forth with the paddle made it hard for him to keep his foot over that hole. He did not try to communicate this ugly fact to the praying darky, nor to the heroic Irishman. They would know 36it soon enough. Premature knowledge would do them no good. He only did his best to keep the water from rushing in.

The scout felt the canoe sinking slowly under him, when ahead he dimly discerned some dark outline, which a minute later proved to be an island, low and rocky, but with sand round its margin, as he later discovered.

With a desperate sweep of the paddle he swung the prow of the canoe toward this island.

The light craft struck it with such force that the forward end was lifted, bouncing up apparently, and then slipped over the wave-worn rocks, driven on by the waves and by the momentum of the canoe.

The scout sprang out at once, and, seizing the painter, he began to haul on it, to bring the canoe still farther out of the water.

Cudjo aroused when he saw that the canoe had struck and was actually aground on what seemed to be land. He could see but the dim outline, but that was enough, and with a howl he sprang out of the water, landing waist-deep. He would have been swept away, if Michael Flynn, coming after him, had not caught him and helped him to make a landing.

Buffalo Bill aided both as they scrambled out of the water.

Cudjo dropped down on the wet rocks, lifting his voice again in prayer.

“Help here with the boat, Flynn,” said the scout.

Together they dragged it clear of the water, placing it well up beyond the waves.

37The island was but a few yards wide and not over twenty yards long; but in the center it rose to a secure height above the stream, and there the rocks were comparatively dry, for the waves and the wash of the current did not reach them.

Buffalo Bill did not begin to explore the island until he had made the painter of the canoe fast to a jutting point of rock.

“Come, Cudjo!” he said, shouting the words. “Be a man! We’re safe for the present.”

The darky stopped praying and got on his feet.

“Marse Cody, we is dead men!” he urged. “We ain’t drowned, but here we is, and we can’t git away. I reckon dis is de center of de earf. How we gwine to git out of it?”

The scout walked toward the other end of the small island, which lay in the very middle of the stream. The darkness was too great to see what was in the river beyond this island; but that they had found a refuge at a time when matters could not have been worse gave him a renewal of hope.

“Pl’ase Heaven, we’re shtill livin’!” said Flynn, standing beside the scout and looking out in the darkness where the river lost itself.

“And as long as there’s life there is hope,” was the scout’s answer.

“Thrue f’r ye! That canoe may yit take us out av this.”

“It has had a hole knocked in it, at the prow, but I think we can patch it.”

“A hole in it! Whoosh! Thin it’s dead lucky we 38are that this island was close by. I seen ye throw the head av the canoe into it, and then I pulled f’r it, and we made it. But how we’re to git aff av it, and what we’ll find whin we do, I dunnaw.”

Cudjo came slowly across the rocky island, shivering.

“Marse Cody,” he cried, “what y’o fink of dat man?”

“Klamath John?”

“Yas, sir. What yo’ fink of him, now? I done warn yo’ not to trust ’im. But you did, and here we is. Did yo’ see dem whiskers and dat hair dat man was wearin’? Befo’ Gawd, dat beat me!”

“An’ it’s mesilf will bate him, if iver I see his ugly mug ag’in. False whiskers and false hair, d’ye mind! It was the iligant make-up that he had, to be sure. I’m hopin’ that he’s livin’, so that I can hammer his face in f’r that.”

When they examined the canoe they decided that they could patch it. Then they sat down to talk over their situation.

“Klamath John fooled me,” Buffalo Bill admitted. “But I still think the letter he showed me was genuine. I’ve got that letter with me now, and we’ll see if we can take a look at it. I was sure it said take the right fork of the river.”

He drew out his waterproof metallic match box, and then from the stores that were in the canoe he got a candle. Having struck his match and lighted his candle, he first looked over the island by its light, and then examined the letter written by Red Reynard, the Fox.

39“‘Take the right fork, where it branches, and you’re safe enough,’” Buffalo Bill read from this letter.

All three looked at those words.

“But here is a thing that we didn’t properly consider. Red Reynard may have thought of the other branch as the right fork. Perhaps he meant the one on the right hand looking upstream, instead of the one on the right hand looking downstream. And that would make all the difference in the world.”

“It was quare, the way that rapscallion did, anyhow,” said Flynn. “He thought we had taken the wrong coorse, and thin he wint that wild he was clane an idjiot. ’Twas that made him pull aff his whiskers an’ wig.”

“The whiskers were pulled off when I threw him down in the canoe,” Buffalo Bill corrected.

“Ye’re right. It’s a wondher I ricollict annything. The whiskers fell aff whin ye threw him down. And thin I suppose he got that rickless, fr’m seein’ that he was rev’aled in his duplicity, that he pulled aff the wig. He laughed like a young hyena, begorra, whin he did it. The man was clane cr-razy.”

“An’ we was crazy for comin’ wid ’im!” expostulated Cudjo. “I’se wonderin’ dat I’se livin’ dis minute.”

“Yez seen him git holt av that rope?” said the Irishman. “Did he know the rope was there, or did he not? In the evint that he did, thin he was expictin’ it, and was prepared f’r it; and was ready to jump, before we got to it. Thin, by the same token, he wasn’t 40cr-razy, but was a schemin’ divil, bint on l’adin’ us to desthruction.”

To conclude that Klamath John had deliberately planned to take the great risk of springing from the canoe to that rope was to credit him with a daring which bordered on lunacy. Yet that wild laugh, which still rang in their ears, had been the laugh of a madman, or of a man whose change from despair to hope had seemed to result temporarily in a sort of insanity. The whole thing was a mystery.

“Can we belave that letther now?” said Flynn. “And if we can’t belave it, what thin? Is there gold layin’ r-round in lumps and sphlinters down in the Golconda Cup? Is there a Golconda Cup at all. And is that pirut ye call Red Reynard doon there?”

“We’ll know better when we get there.”

“When we git dar?” cried Cudjo. “Marse Cody, you knows we ain’t nebber gwine git dar!”

“I’m hoping we shall.”

“How you ’specs tuh bring dat combobberation about?” Cudjo demanded.

“We’ll float on down this stream in the canoe, after we get it patched.”

“If we tries it, we is sho’ dead men!” Cudjo protested.

“If we stay here we are dead men.”

“I reckons dat’s so, Marse Cody. We is dead men no matter how yo’ fix it.”

“I’m niver dead, so long as I’m livin’!” Flynn declared, with true Irish hopefulness. “This may be Lost River, and it may be the other fork av it. I 41dunnaw. But whatever it is, it shore goes somewhere.”

“It goes into de groun’, Marse Flynn. Ain’t we in de ground now? An’ if we goes furder we suttinly will be mo’ deeper into de ground’, won’t we? Dis Los’ River is a los’ river, which mean dat it run down into de yea’th and never come up no mo’. And if we goes wid it, how we gwine tuh come up? You des ’splain to me dat, will yo’?”

“I ain’t belavin’ it goes down into the earth no great ways, annyhow!” Flynn protested. “It runs fasht enough here, I know, but that’s no r’ason it doesn’t come out into the sunlight ag’in. I’m goin’ to stick to it that it does, begorra! It’s no use to belave anny other way; f’r if we thried niver so har-rd we couldn’t git back up this sthrame.”

“That’s to be taken as settled,” said Buffalo Bill. “We can’t get back up the stream. Therefore, if we leave this island, we’ve got to go downstream, no matter what happens. I think we’d better see if we can’t patch the canoe.”

He wanted to put Flynn and Cudjo to work, knowing it would help to bolster their spirits.

It took an hour of close work to patch the hole in the prow.

The stores were lifted out of the canoe and carried to the highest part of the island, and the canoe was also carried to that point, before work on it began.

The three men down on their knees, in the flickering candlelight, working at the canoe, on that dark little island set in the blackness of the underground 42river, presented a strange sight. The river roared by close at hand, and the dark walls and roof of the singular natural tunnel stretched in each direction as far as eye could see.

“We could live here some time,” said the scout cheerfully. “We’ve got stores enough, and we have the whole river for our water supply.”

“But dey’s bats and fings in here, Marse Cody!” the darky objected. “I hear um go flyin’ by.”

Yet Cudjo was in no haste to leave the island and trust his precious self to that wild black torrent.

When they had patched the canoe they again sat on the rocks and talked over the situation.

“It will soon be dark outside,” said the scout, holding his watch so that the candlelight fell on the dial. “Shall we try it before morning?”

Cudjo declared his desire to wait for daylight outside.

“I think, myself, it will be better,” the scout urged, when Flynn did not express his opinion. “With daylight, we could see when we approached the end of this stream, where it flows out of the tunnel. For I’m taking it for granted that it flows out somewhere. And, also, it seems to me that the light from the outside may get in here to a certain extent, and so that would help us. We can set candles in the prow of the canoe; but if we could have a few rays of daylight additional it would be welcome.”

So they decided to remain in their present position until the scout’s watch showed that morning had come.

CHAPTER VI. ON THE UNDERGROUND RIVER.

Though there was a good deal of misty vapor in the tunnel, it was possible to keep reasonably dry and comfortable by wrapping in the blankets taken from the canoe.

A generous supper, taken from the canoe supplies, helped much to add to the cheerfulness which the scout’s hopeful manner created.

Flynn lighted his pipe when supper was over, and sat on the rocks, smoking and talking of the outlook.

“Begorra, the drainage is good, f’r wan thing!” he declared, as he saw Cudjo heave some of the supper remnants into the river. “A felly might shtay here a good while, though the mist would damage his health, I’m thinkin’. There’s many a worse place in the world, no doubt. Shtill, I’m not wantin’ to shtay longer than I nade to.”

“I doan’ want tuh stay at all,” said Cudjo. “Marse Cody, didn’t you heah somepin’?”

“I heard nothing,” the scout answered. “If you’ll lie down, Cudjo, and get some rest and sleep, you’ll feel better. Wrap up in that blanket and lie down a while.”

“Dis river make so much noise I couldn’t sleep a wink, Marse Cody!” Cudjo declared. “And I keeps hearin’ fings. You doan’ heah um?”

“I hear nothing but the roar of the river.”

“’Twas a kind ob low moanin’ like, Marse Cody. 44Dar it is ag’in. An’ I heah’s somepin’ breathin’ hard, too.”

Cudjo got up and walked uneasily to and fro. At last he sat down on a log by the shore. That is, he thought it was a log when he sat down on it; but he knew better soon, for what he supposed to be a log, taking no notice of him at first, began by and by to squirm under him. He sprang to his feet with a howl that would have done credit to an Indian.

“Marse Cody!” he screeched, “dis heah log is alive! Befo’ the Lawd it is! Yah! Hit’s movin’.”

Buffalo Bill and Mickey Flynn ran to him, and then they beheld an astonishing thing.

A long, dark object, which in the poor light they had from the first fancied was a wet log, had moved from its bed and was crawling slowly into the water.

Cudjo had jumped back, and was screeching again.

“You see it, Marse Cody?” he yelled. “You see it?”

Buffalo Bill ran back for the candle, and, bringing it up, flashed its light down on the moving “log.”

“An alligator!” he exclaimed, holding the light close to the creature’s back. “No, not an alligator,” he corrected, “though it resembles one. What is it?”

The lizardlike thing drew its length lazily into the water, where it sank out of sight without a sound, although they were given time to see it.

It was not an alligator, though it certainly was a saurian. It resembled an alligator, or crocodile, but was more sluggish, had a larger head, and a thicker, shorter body.

45Cudjo’s panicky fright was too pitiable to be laughed at. He was almost in a state of collapse.

“Dat’s de fing I heard breathin’,” he declared. “Hit must er been. And to fink dat I set down on it! Dat sho’ does analyze me! I’se dat trimbly and skeered dat I cain’t move. Marse Cody, does ye’ reckon any more ob um is roun’ heah?”

That he might be sure there were not, Buffalo Bill began to look over the island with the aid of the candle. Flynn accompanied him, but Cudjo remained behind, keeping now near the very top of the rocky islet, that he might be as far as possible from the water.

“Begorra, there’s another wan av the bloody crathers!” declared Flynn.

But this was only a log, slimy and wet, looking, in the faint light, much like the strange saurian sat on by the negro.

“There are no more here,” said the scout, when he and Flynn had made their circle of the island.

“You bet I stays awake dis night!” said Cudjo. “Dat was an alligator, and an alligator sho’ does love nigger meat. Yo’ couldn’t make me lay down ag’in if you was to hit me wid a club. No, sir! I keeps my eyes open dis night. None of dem fings ain’t gwine to swaller me while I’m sleepin’.”

While they were talking they heard a roar down the river—a singular sound, mingling with the noise of the stream. They did not doubt it was made by the saurian, which they believed had gone in that direction.

46Though Buffalo Bill did not blame Cudjo for having been frightened by his unpleasant experience, he tried to argue him into a quieter frame of mind, and again advised him to lie down and try to get some rest, assuring him that the “alligator” would not return. But Cudjo sat up, refusing to trust himself in the blanket.

Buffalo Bill and Flynn talked, while Flynn smoked pipeful after pipeful of tobacco.

The scout lay down at last, when his watch showed that the time was after midnight. Then Flynn rolled in his blanket, and Cudjo, fearing to stare longer out into the darkness, also wrapped himself up, and tried to get some rest, if not some sleep.

All slept soundly before morning.

When they woke the darkness still held, though the scout fancied it was not as dense. His watch showed him that it was seven o’clock.

They had breakfast from the boat’s stores, and again Flynn smoked his pipe, while they talked of what they should now do.

Then the canoe was loaded again, and they took their places in it, and floated off from the island, trusting themselves once more to the swift stream. It was the only thing they could do.

A number of candles threw their light on the water, enabling the scout, who sat in the prow, to see obstructions.

With the deafening roar of the river about them, the canoe plunging on, and uncertainty ahead, that was not a pleasant voyage. How long it continued they hardly knew.

47More than once, by a deft stroke of his paddle, Buffalo Bill saved the frail craft from destruction.

The light of the candles showed only seamed, black walls, where the mist of the river had collected and hung in glistening drops, which resembled flashing diamonds as the light of the candles touched them. The river looked as black as the walls.

After a while Buffalo Bill became sure that the daylight was brightening in the tunnel. That he might be sure of this, after speaking of it to his companions, he swept the candles into a heap in the bottom of the canoe, extinguishing them.

For a little while the darkness seemed to have been made pitchy black, but it was only by reason of the contrast. Soon it became clear that the dark tunnel was really growing brighter ahead.

“Hooray!” Flynn yelled, unable to restrain his joy. “I’d welcome light ahead there av it was fr’m the fires of the pit. Whoosh! But we’re fair flyin’.”

They could again see the walls flying past them, showing the speed with which the canoe was going.

The current was nearly free of rocks, and it was not difficult work to keep the canoe away from the walls, so that this terrific speed really harmed nothing now.

Brighter and still brighter grew the light within the tunnel.

The brightness came from ahead, showing that some sort of opening was there which let in the sunlight.

Cudjo forgot his fears, and clamored for the canoe 48to go faster, when it seemed already that it was almost flying.

Then a white point, like a star, shone dead ahead.

“The opening!” shouted Buffalo Bill. “There it is!”

Cudjo chattered his joy, and the Irishman’s lips shot out wild exclamations.

Steadily that starlike point of light gained in size, and the brightness of the tunnel increased. Then they could see that the “star” was a hole through which light came.

“Kape her goin’!” yelled Flynn, sweeping the canoe on with his paddle. “Kape her goin’!”

The shining aperture enlarged rapidly, and soon the canoe was right in it, and a blinding flash of daylight was just before. Then the canoe shot out of the tunnel’s black mouth, and sped along the surface of a stream that rolled between rocky and sandy banks. Behind towered the high walls of mountains, steep as upright boards, reaching apparently to the sky.

“We’ve passed through the walls,” said the scout, “and are in the Golconda Cup.”

“And that letther wasn’t a lie at all, at all!” said Flynn. “Glory be! It’s praisin’ the saints I am f’r this blissed minute.”

As they floated on they saw that they were in a vast valley, encircled by precipitous mountain walls, and that the river flowed through it. They were in the Golconda Cup, which it was said no man had ever entered.

CHAPTER VII. SKULL AND CROSSBONES.

The current decreased when they entered this wide valley. The cañon had disappeared beyond the tunnel, and here were only broken hills and sandy river banks inclosing the stream. At points along the stream were trees and bushes.

When they were nearly a mile out from the tunnel, and the current had dropped to no more than seven or eight miles an hour, they beheld in front of them a low, bush-grown island. Then, looking off to the right, where the stream made a bend beyond the island, they were astonished to behold houses amid the trees on the river bank. They seemed to be large cabins, and their presence denoted human occupancy.

“That letther wasn’t a lie at all!” Flynn repeated, when he saw those houses.

“And if what it said is true, that Red Reynard is in here with a lot of his villains, we’ll be a good deal better off if they don’t see us,” the scout remarked, as he turned the prow of the canoe toward the shore, which presented a sandy bluff at that point.

“We’ll get under that bluff,” he said, “where we’re not so likely to be sighted by whoever occupies those cabins, and then, I think, we’d better try to land on that island, and go into hiding there until we see who is in this valley.”

The eyes of Cudjo were round and staring. When 50he turned them from the cabins to the surface of the river he uttered an ejaculation of fear.

“Marse Cody, dar it is!” he said in a whisper. “Dar’s dat alligator. He riz right plum’ up f’um de bottom of de river. Yo’ see ’im, doan’ you?”

They could not but see the scaly saurian, as it floated on the surface of the water. Apparently, it had not seen them. At the small bend just below the saurian turned across the stream, heading as if for the island.

“Hit look des lack it’s leadin’ de way, and sayin’ for us to come on!” whispered Cudjo, his eyes staring. “Marse Cody, I doan’ lack de appearance ob dat, does you? Looks as if he’s leadin’ us on. I reckon mebbe he’s livin’ over dar.”

The canoe, turning at that bend, for the high bluff ended there, was following in the wake of the big saurian. They saw it reach the low shore of the island, where it sank from sight, and did not rise again.

This crossing of the river in the broad light of day was a ticklish thing, and the scout kept his eyes trained as much as possible on the river banks below, and on those cabins. He was anxious not to be seen.

They made their landing at almost the spot where the big saurian had disappeared. Stepping ashore there, they drew out the canoe, then took the load out of it, and carried it back into the bushes. They did not believe they had been observed.

As for the “alligator,” Cudjo was the only one who feared it, and because he feared it he kept well back from the water.

The island consisted of several acres of bush-grown 51land lying in the middle of the river, which here widened out into a sluggish stream, so different from its hitherto known characteristics.

Having concealed the canoe and their belongings, Buffalo Bill and his companions made their way quietly through the brushy ground to the other side of the island.

They beheld now an astonishing sight. Instead of the few cabins, which they had supposed were the only ones, they beheld a village.

The cabins were ranged along the right bank of the river, in the midst of trees, less than a mile below the flat island. Between the houses ran a single wide street, which paralleled the course of the river. Men were seen walking in this street, and down by the river other men were seen working, as if they searched for gold, or were washing it.

Buffalo Bill brought out his binoculars and covered the houses and the men with them. The houses were big log cabins, though some of them seemed to have additions constructed of mud and stone.

“That letther wasn’t anny lie at all, at all!” said Mike Flynn, repeating what he had said so many times before.

“It looks as if it were true; and if so, then Red Reynard, the Fox, has his lair right here before us. Take a look, Flynn.”

Michael surveyed the cabins and the men carefully and long.

“Begorra, it’s too bad they ain’t honest min!” he 52said. “We could walk out and jine thim, av they were. But I’m guessin’ it wouldn’t be wise to thry it.”

“Anything but wise, Flynn. We’ve got to find out what all this means, before we venture to show ourselves.”

“I’d like to know now, so I would, if Klamath John is dead or livin’, and what he mint by what he did. Troth, so I would! It’s that quare I can’t make annything out av it. What do yez think av it, Cody?”

He returned the glasses, and the scout gave them to Cudjo, asking him to take a look and report whatever he saw. Cudjo, after a few moments’ survey, began to search the river with the binoculars.

“Marse Cody, did dat ’gator go on downstream?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Well, I ’clar to goodness I fink he’s comin’ back! I sho’ seen somepin’ down dar looked lack his haid stickin’ up.”

Buffalo Bill and Flynn, not being greatly interested in the “alligator,” continued to speculate concerning the houses and the men.

“If dem men finds us heah, Marse Cody, we’s gwine see int’restin’ times,” Cudjo prophesied.

“An’ that ain’t anny lie!” said Flynn.

“Yes,” assented the scout, “we’ll have to be careful. But I don’t think they come often to this island. There are signs that they’ve been here, but not for several days.”

He pointed to some marks on the sandy shore just below, where digging had been done in the sand. 53When they looked closely they beheld tracks of human feet.

“Marse Cody, how is we gwine tuh git out o’ dis place?” said Cudjo.

“I don’t know. That’s to be found out. We’re safe for the present. And we’ve plenty to eat. But we’ll have to eat it without cooking, for the smoke of a fire would certainly attract attention.”

For a long time the scout and his companions stared out from the shelter of the bushes, watching the village, and the men they saw moving about.

As the scout was making a final survey of the cabins with his binoculars, he turned them on the open door of a cabin, hoping to see the interior. What the glasses brought into view above the door was startling and suggestive.

“A skull and crossbones, and not a mere representation of them!” was his thought. “Flynn,” he said, “take the glasses, and tell me what you see just over the door of that cabin.”

Flynn took the binoculars and trained them on the cabin door.

“I hope I’m not dr’amin’,” he said, “but if that ain’t a skull, and if thim ain’t the thigh bones av a man crossed under it, thin I am dr’amin’ or cr-razy. What does it mane, begorra?”

Cudjo clutched the glasses and looked through them.

“Marse Cody, you ’members dem stick pins? It’s des lack um, ober dat door.”

The scout and Flynn had thought of the stick pins even before Cudjo thus spoke of them.

54“The skull and crossbones!” said Buffalo Bill. “If Klamath John found the stick pins with that letter written by Red Reynard, the Fox, it’s easy enough to connect the skull and crossbones on the stick pins with those over that door.”

“It begins to luk as though that felly wasn’t lyin’ whin he towlt yez how he found the letther,” said Flynn seriously.

“But you mustn’t forget that he went to the very depths of deception when he disguised himself with that wig and whiskers,” was the scout’s comment. “There is something very singular about it all.”

“Shure, it’s too quare f’r words.”

The discovery of the skull and crossbones above the cabin door threw Cudjo into a new flutter of fear. He had never been able to forget the outlaw wearing a stick pin of that kind, who had knocked him down at the time of the railway holdup. Apparently members of that same band of desperadoes occupied the cabins here in the Golconda Cup.

“I wonder if they’re washin’ f’r gold?” said Flynn, once more studying the figures by the stream. “It’s gold I’m wantin’—gobs av it; an’ it makes me fingers itch to think that anny man can be takin’ it out that way, right befure me eyes, wid me here wantin’ my share, and that hilpless I can’t poke me nose out av the bushes. Musha! But it’s the loikes av that makes the hear-rt ache.”

Buffalo Bill brought out the stick pins he had kept in his possession, and looked at them. Their suggestiveness, in connection with that gruesome sign over 55the door of the cabin, and the letter written by Red Reynard, was impressive.

“Fr’m the looks av the cabins—the number av thim, I mane—the min huntin’ gold down here ar-re too manny f’r us,” said Flynn. “It was the gold and the iligant advinture that brought me. We’ve had the advinture, and I’m not denyin’ it was thrillin’ enough; and now we want the gold. How we’re to git it, though, I dunnaw. Thim divils have camped on the claim, and if we secure anny gold I’m thinkin’ we’ll have to crack heads f’r it.”

CHAPTER VIII. THE PRISONER.

Throughout the remainder of the day the scout and his companions kept close under cover of the bushes of the island. They needed rest and sleep, and were not yet ready for any decisive movement.

Shortly before sunset, while Buffalo Bill was lying down and Flynn was dozing, Cudjo uttered a cry which brought the two white men to their feet.

They saw Cudjo floundering at the edge of the water, as if he had stepped off and gone beyond his depth, but as they ran to aid him they noticed the scaly back of an “alligator” rising slowly to the surface. The back was of a brownish mud color and seemed to be plastered over with river slime. The next moment the huge head rose in sight, the piggish eyes could be seen, and then the huge mouth came into view. Within the jaws of the loathsome creature was a piece of Cudjo’s coat. Cudjo gave another flounce and splash, like a speared fish, and the piece of coat, tearing loose, was left in the mouth of the saurian.

Buffalo Bill seized Cudjo’s hand and helped him to land, and the saurian disappeared with a slow and sullen movement. Cudjo fell on the shore under the bushes in almost a fainting condition.

“Marse Cody,” he said, “I is a dead man! Dat gator bit me, and I know I’se pizened. I sho is. I can feel de pizen wukkin’ through my ligerments.”

57He would not believe otherwise until Buffalo Bill had shown him that he had not even been touched by the teeth of the creature.

“It caught your coat in its mouth, but its teeth never so much as touched you!” the scout assured him.

Thereupon Cudjo sat up. His black face had changed to an ashen brown, and he was trembling.

“A ’gator is monst’ous fond ob de meat of a nigger,” he said. “I has heah’d dat always, and now I knows it; and it’s only by de grace o’ Gawd dat I’se heah now, ’stead ob in dat ’gator’s stummick. Marse Cody, it was dis heah way: I was watchin’ de sho’ over yondeh, as yo’ done tole me to, and I was watchin’ de river fuh de ’gator. But I didn’t see ’im. My back was to’a’ds de way we come f’um, and I was lookin’ down de river to’a’ds dem cabins, lack you said. While I was doin’ dat dis ’gator riz right beside me, an’ I didn’t know he was widin a mile twell he had me. Den I yelled. Marse Cody, you’d ’a’ yelled, too. You would ’a’ been ’bleeged tuh yell. I ’spect I was head’d at dem cabins, but I can’t help it, nohow.”

Mickey Flynn had watched the river while Buffalo Bill made his examination of the negro, and now Flynn spoke:

“Cody, there’s a man on t’other shore, right acrass fr’m this island, and he’s lukin’ at it. I’m bel’avin’ he heard the nagur whin he let out that screech.”

“Who’s a nigger?” said Cudjo, bristling with indignation, in spite of his scare; for, though Cudjo would 58call himself a “nigger,” he objected to any one else doing it.

Buffalo Bill left Cudjo’s side and slipped to the point where the Irishman was watching.

The man seen by Flynn stood on the other shore, just abreast of the island, and stared across the water. He wore rough boots and a red-flannel shirt, and he carried a pick, while at his hip swung a revolver. In addition, he had long hair and a heavy red beard. After staring a while at the island, he went on downstream, but soon he was seen again, this time in a shallow boat, which he had drawn from under the bank.

“He’s comin’ acrass!” said Flynn. “He shure heard the screech av the nagur, and now we’re in f’r it. I’ll cr-rack the head av him whin he makes his landin’. It’s a swate headache he’ll be havin’, if he comes in close by me.”

He picked from the ground a broken bough that would serve well as a club.

“It’s breakin’ heads reminds me of the dear ould dart,” he said grimly. “It would be Donnybrook Fair, if there was enough av thim. Whurroo! He’s comin’ sthraight f’r this p’int.”

Buffalo Bill stepped back and drew his revolver, though he had no intention of using it except as a club. As a second and better thought, he went to the heaped-up articles taken from the canoe and selected a rope, which he looped and put in shape for a lasso cast.

The man held his way steadily across to the island, but when he approached it he stopped the canoe, and, 59sitting quietly in it, looked through the bushes as well as he could. When he saw and heard nothing, he dipped his paddle again and came on. He drove the nose of his boat into the reeds that grew by the water’s edge, and stepped out.

Mickey Flynn rose from behind a bush and brought his club down on the man’s head with such force that the fellow pitched forward on his face without a sound.

“Whurroo!” said Flynn, dashing on him. “It’s a nate way to do a job av that kind, betther than a knife or a pistol. He’ll be comin’ r-round in a minute, but we can have him fast enough befure he does.”

With the rope which he had meant to use as a lasso, Buffalo Bill tied the hands and feet of the unconscious man.

When, five minutes later, the fellow recovered enough to talk, he looked with quailing eyes into the faces of his captors.

“Do you belong down there?” said the scout, nodding in the direction of the cabins. “We know you do, of course. Answer our questions straight, and we won’t be hard on you.”

“Why did yez come acrass?” queried Flynn.

“You laid a trap for me,” said the man, looking at Flynn. “I ought to ’a’ knowed it was a trap, but I didn’t believe that any men could be over here, not of our crowd. How you got in here I don’t know. That bellow one of you let out didn’t sound like anything human, and that helped to fool me; I thought it must be some kind of a beast.”

60“Baste! It was near to bein’ a baste, for it was a nagur.”

“Mister Flynn, will yo’ quit callin’ me a nigger?” Cudjo protested. “I ain’t no nigger, I’se a gem’man ob color, and I’se been a car po’ter, suh. I ain’t a nigger no mo’ dan you is, I’d hab you comperhend.”

The prisoner turned his staring eyes on Cudjo.

“Did you ever see one of these?” asked Buffalo Bill, holding before him one of the stick pins showing a skull and crossbones.

The prisoner stared at it with unwinking eyes, but it was clear he was astonished.

“I’ve seen something like it,” he admitted slowly.

“There is something like it on the door of the cabin which can be seen from here!”

“Yes.”

“About two years ago a band of masked bandits attacked and robbed a train on the Cedar Mountain Railroad. They wore stick pins like this. Were you with that crowd?”

The prisoner hesitated. “What are you drivin’ at?” he said. “I dunno what you’re talkin’ about.”

“The leader of that band was Red Reynard, the Fox, and Red Reynard is in command of the men in the cabins down there. Am I right in that?”

“In the fiend’s name, who are you?” said the man, as he lifted himself on his elbow and stared hard.

“You are Buffalo Bill!” he added, with sudden comprehension.

“I admit it.”

61“And you’ve follered Red Reynard? This will be a surprise to the boys.”

“Then Red Reynard is down there?”

“So long’s you know all about it, what’s the use of denyin’ it?”

“He came here through the cañon of the Lost River, by way of the tunnel through the cliffs; and he’s found gold in the sand of the stream. You’re taking out a tremendous lot of it, and are sending it to Frisco by Poker Pete, and stacking it up in the banks there.”

The prisoner stared as if dazed; the knowledge possessed by Buffalo Bill struck him as something so uncommon and unaccountable that it was weird.

“Yes,” he admitted. “If you’ll loosen up these cords a bit I’ll tell everything I know, though I guess you don’t need me to. You must ’a’ got in here the same way we did.”

“Where is Klamath John now?” was Buffalo Bill’s next question, at which the prisoner’s eyes widened again.

“Klamath Jack, you mean?”

“Klamath Jack, or Klamath John, I suppose it’s all the same. Where is he?”

“I don’t know. He went to Frisco a couple of weeks ago, and ought to be back by now.”

“How did he get out of the Cup? There’s another way besides the river?”

“Yes, there’s another way.”

“Tell us about it.”

“You climb the cliffs with ropes.”

62But a certain change in his manner made the scout sure he was lying.

“Tell me how Klamath John looks,” was the scout’s next demand.

“He is smooth-faced, but he disguised himself before he set out for Frisco.”

“We met the divil!” cried Flynn. “He wore a false beard and a wig.”

“Yes, that’s what he wore.”

“Did he intend to visit the town of Klamath?” said the scout.

“I understood so; he was to come back by there.”

“What else do you know about him?”

“Not much. He’s the lieutenant, and acts as chief here when the chief is gone.”

“And the chief is Red Reynard?”

“Yes.”

“How long have you fellows been here in the Cup?”

“The better part of a year.”

“And you’ve taken out a lot of gold in that time, and sent it to Frisco?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“You built the cabins?”

“Yes, we cut the logs above here and floated ’em down. ’Twasn’t any great job.”

“How long was it planned for your gang to stay in here?”

“As long as we liked; there wasn’t no time set. We was suited here; plenty of game in the Cup here, and fish in the river, and what extrys we needed could be brought from Frisco, or some place like it. We 63thought we’d hit it good here, and we didn’t care to get out in a hurry, ’specially as officers outside was lookin’ for some of us. We calc’lated to leave by and by, of course, to enjoy the gold we got here, but we wasn’t hurryin’ it. We was comfortable enough.”

His manner admitted that he believed the end of that pleasant dream had come.

CHAPTER IX. THE PRISONER’S ESCAPE.

The red-shirted prisoner, who had confessed to the name of Jim Benton, lay on the ground, bound hand and foot, and watched with curious eyes the transformation taking place in the appearance of Buffalo Bill.

The scout had produced the wig and the beard worn by Klamath John, and had put them on. He did not need the false imperial and mustache, for his own resembled them in a marked degree; but the Dundreary side whiskers made a great change in his looks.

When Buffalo Bill had effected these alterations, he untied the prisoner and made him surrender his red shirt and hat, his boots, and his muddy trousers, giving him in lieu of them a pair of blankets in which to wrap himself. When the scout had put these on he would not have been recognized by his most intimate friend.

“I’m going into your camp,” he said to the prisoner. “Perhaps I can make the gang there believe I’m one of them, or at least one of their kind. If Klamath Jack and Red Reynard are away my chances are all the better. Perhaps you think I look somewhat like Klamath Jack now?”

“The dead image of him.”

But again the scout detected the false note.

“Thanks for the hint that the disguise isn’t as good as I thought it. Maybe it wouldn’t be healthy for me 65to try to make them think I am Klamath Jack. You will be kept close here, and if you do not make trouble you will have none. My friends will guard you, and they have orders to shoot you if you try to get away.”

Buffalo Bill departed in the boat which had brought the prisoner to the island, dropping down the river in the darkness. He was hardly out of sight before Benton, under cover of the blankets that had been thrown over him, was twisting at the cords which held his wrists together behind his back. As he did so he felt the cold touch of a rock, and against its jagged edge he began to saw the cords that were around his wrists.

The darky was roosting well back from the shore, under the trees, with his eyes fixed on the dark water, where momentarily he expected to see the “’gator.”

Flynn was crouched on the ground but a few paces from the prisoner, smoking his pipe reflectively. Mickey was following Buffalo Bill in imagination, wondering what the outcome would be, and he was denouncing, with Irish vehemence, the fate that kept him on the island when so daring an adventure was to be carried out.

For these reasons, and also because he fancied the prisoner was tied securely, Flynn was giving little attention to aught save his own thoughts.

Benton made no noticeable sound as he sawed the cords to and fro against the jagged edge of the rock. He, too, was thinking of Buffalo Bill, but he was thinking much more of himself and his chance of escape.

66“Marse Flynn,” he heard the darky say, “if dat fing comes up dar ag’in hit’s gwine tuh be monst’ous close to yo’ laigs, hit might bite um off. ’Gators is got pow’ful sharp teeth.”

“I wish it was gnawin’ at these strings, then!” thought the prisoner, with a grim sense of humor. “I don’t seem to be doin’ anything, and I reckon that infernal scout will be back here before I cut through ’em.”

“Divil take the ’gator!” said Flynn, unmoved by the darky’s warning. “Alligators was niver known to ate annything but nagurs an’ dogs.”

“Den yo’ ain’t safe dar at all, Marse Flynn!”

Flynn turned toward Cudjo, who seemed to be showing his ivories in a grin.

“Call me a dog, will yez?” he said. “Take that!”

A stick whistled through the air, aimed at the darky’s head, but Cudjo dodged it, and laughed.

The sounds caused by this altercation and the crash of the stick in the bushes Jim Benton took advantage of. Sawing furiously, he felt one of the strands of cord fall away. This so encouraged him that he continued his work, with a hope that became buoyant as he felt the cords loosen more and more.

Finally his wrists were free. He rolled over on his side, and stretched his arms, working his fingers to relieve the stiffness occasioned by the cords.

“Now, if I had my feet loose!” was his thought.

To accomplish that promised not to be so easy.

Making a pretense of restlessness, he twisted about until he had his ankles against the rock that had cut 67through the wrist cords. Slowly he began to work to cut the ankle cords in the same way.

“What the divil makes ye squirm ’round so, like a shnake?” said Flynn, whose attention was at length drawn.

“Marse Flynn, dat man been doin’ dat fuh mo’ dan ten minutes, I reckons,” observed Cudjo.

“An’ ye niver mintioned it to me! Yez ar-re a gr-reat wan to be lift to watch a prisoner! Don’t yez know that ivery movement that luks suspicious has to be reported? Yez are not only a nagur, but a fool nagur!”

“Misteh Flynn,” protested the darky, “if you keeps on ’sultin’ me in dat scan’lous manner, I done gwine bus’ yo’ haid open wid a stone. I don’t stood nuff f’um you already. I ain’t been lef’ to watch dat pris’ner; you has been placed in discharge ob him yo’self. An’ if he gits away de faults ob de matter will be laid at yo’ do’. I washes my han’s of you. I hopes you falls in dat river an’ de ’gator ’vours you! You is de mos’ contemptuous man I ebber see. I’se a gem’man ob color, unnerstan’, and I been a car po’ter!”

Mickey Flynn walked over to the prisoner. The latter had ceased his struggles to cut those ankle cords, and lay back now, narrowly watching the Irishman through half-closed eyes. His hands were behind his back, to give them the appearance of being tied there.

“What the divil ar-re yez up to, annyway?” Flynn demanded, stooping over him. Flynn’s temper had been ruffled by the words of the darky. “Ye’re wrigglin’ round like a wor-rm, begorra! What’s bitin’ ye?”

68“These cords are tied so durn tight that they hurt me, that’s all,” the prisoner explained, hoping when he said it that Flynn would go away.

“Oh, they ar-re? Well, the likes av you ought to have a cor-rd round his nick, begorra, with an ind av it fastened to the limb av a three! Thim’s my sintimints; and that’s what would be done to yez, av I was havin’ me own way about it. Cody’s too aisy intirely wid crathers av your class.”

He stooped over, to inspect the cords that he supposed held the man’s wrists.

It was to the prisoner a critical moment; he had no time for hesitation. Driven to desperation by the discovery that stared him in the face, he lifted his bound feet, and planted them with such force in the Irishman’s stomach that Flynn was hurled backward and fell with a crash in the bushes.

The next moment the prisoner had staggered up. He tried to run, but fell, then he began to roll over and over like a cart wheel, on his way to the water.

Flynn came out of the bushes, roaring his wrath in no gentle tones.

Even the darky had leaped up, and was now rushing toward the prisoner. Flynn drew his revolver, though he knew he dared not fire, lest the report of its discharge should reach the cabins.

“Shtop, ye divil!” he commanded, but before he could reach the man, the latter had flounced over into the river. Flynn reached for him, but he was gone, for he sank from sight as soon as he touched the water.

“Now, the divil is to pay!” said Flynn, fingering 69his revolver and staring at the spot where the man had disappeared. “He’ll be drowned, I’m thinkin’, an’ ’twill sarve him right!”

“’Twas yo’ fault, Marse Flynn!” Cudjo asserted.

“Say that ag’in,” Flynn roared at him, “and I’ll shtick me fist down yure black throat! ’Tis a lie, it is! Av he’s drowned, it’s his own fault.”

But that the escaping prisoner was not drowned both saw a second or so later; for he arose to the surface a few yards away, put up his hands, and began to swim, heading across toward the shore opposite.

Flynn pointed the revolver at him, then lowered it, fearing to fire.

“Git the canoe!” he said. “Tumble lively, too! The divil has got his hands loose, and he’s gittin’ away.”

He ran for the canoe and dragged it into the water; and, as the darky moved too slowly to suit him, he sprang in alone.

Paddling away from the shore, he headed the canoe for the spot where he had seen the man swimming; but he saw him no longer, for the desperate fellow had dived, and was out of sight.

Flynn rowed round and round in a circle, muttering excited ejaculations, but the man did not reappear.

“The divil’s drowned, begob!” he said, speaking so that the darky could hear. “His fate were tied, aven if he had his hands free, and he wint undher widout comin’ up ag’in.”

Nevertheless, he widened his circles, still looking for the man’s head to pop out of the water. Then he 70heard a splash, and saw that the man had risen near the other shore and was swimming for it with strong strokes.

Flynn sent the canoe flying after him, but again the man dived, going under like a fish. When the escaping prisoner rose again, in the willows by the shore, the darkness favored him and Flynn could not see him.

Flynn paddled slowly past the willows, staring into them; but the prisoner had only his head sticking above the water, and remained undiscovered. For nearly an hour the Irishman kept the canoe going up and down the shore, crisscrossing the stream, and searching with great persistence. At the end of that time he gave up, and paddled back to the island.

“He’s gone!” he said to Cudjo.

“Marse Flynn, I reckons de ’gator got him!” declared Cudjo solemnly.

Then both were startled by a report of revolvers coming from the village.

CHAPTER X. DANGER AND DARING.

When Buffalo Bill departed from the island it was his intention to enter the village and discover what he could. If observed while doing it, he fancied that his chances of getting off safely would be increased by the changes made in his attire and the disguise he had adopted.

Thanks to the darkness, he had no trouble in bringing his boat to a landing without discovery at the foot of the rocky bluff just above the first log cabin. He tied the boat there, then climbed the bluff and walked boldly into the village.

Lights were burning in some of the cabins, and he saw here and there a moving form, but the street and the spaces between the cabins were dark.

As the scout passed along he saw that a cabin close by the stream and backed on one side by a high bluff was not only the largest in the village, but was occupied, and that on one side was a sashless, open window. He slipped up to this cabin, and, creeping along the dark wall, gained the open window and looked in.

Several men were sitting there, talking and smoking. They were red-shirted fellows, rough-faced and hard looking. The interior of the room was bare of anything like luxuries. The men sat on stools and logs of wood. There were two or three doors, in addition to the closed door at the front.

72Buffalo Bill fixed his eyes on one of the men, who had more of an air of authority than the others.

“Red Reynard!” he said to himself. “He is here.”

The man referred to was younger and smarter looking than his companions. He had his chair tipped against the wall, and he smoked a big brier-root pipe.

“Frisco was lively enough,” he was saying. “Too bad we can’t all pull our freight out of this and enjoy a little of the life they have down there. When we’ve raked in a little more gold dust I think we can try it.”

For a long time the scout stood by the window, listening and watching.

It was plain that Red Reynard had but recently returned from a trip to Frisco, where he had gone with some gold dust, and had brought back a few sorely desired luxuries, one of them being tobacco. All the men were smoking as if the witching weed had not been scented by them for many days.

As Buffalo Bill thus watched, one of the doors opened into this room, and there appeared before his eyes a marvelously beautiful young woman. The thing was so surprising that he fairly gasped. She carried a package under one arm, and after greeting the men and glancing quickly round, she went on toward the outer door.

“Say, there!” Red Reynard shouted at her, bringing the front legs of his tipped chair to the floor with a thud. “Where you goin’?”

“Just to the other cabin,” she said timidly.

“What you got there?”

Her calmness deserted her, and she showed fright.

73“Only my jacket,” she said, but her voice trembled.

“I’ll take a look at it!”

Red Reynard’s red face had flushed to a deeper hue, with suspicion that seemed mixed with anger. He rose, stretching out his heavy red hand.

“It’s—just my jacket!” the girl protested, strong agitation now showing in her face and manner.

“I’ll look at it!” he said roughly.

When he came toward her she uttered a suppressed cry, and ran to the outer door, where she tried to go out. But she was too nervous to open the door quickly, or it stuck, for before she could escape, Red Reynard reached her.

“No tricks!” he cried, with an oath. Then he caught her and threw her backward with a cruel jerk, and the package she had been carrying dropped to the floor with a thump. It fell open, and some bags of gold dust rolled out before the surprised eyes of the men.

Red Reynard’s face flushed with wrath.

“That was your game, was it? You sneaked the gold, and then was intending to sneak yourself out of here. Not much you don’t!”

The girl screamed when he caught her by the hair with so rough a touch that he seemed to be dragging it out by the roots. The men in the room did not interfere. One or two of them were brutes enough to laugh.

To see an outlaw and brute like Red Reynard abuse a woman in that manner made the scout’s blood boil. He did not know what relation she bore to the outlaw, 74if any; yet it seemed she had planned to leave the house without his knowledge, and that intention spoke volumes.

Buffalo Bill dropped his right hand to the revolver that lay in his coat pocket, when he saw Red Reynard throw the woman to the floor. As the scout put his hand on the weapon in his pocket, not having yet made up his mind what to do, the door opened, and Klamath John appeared in it.

The girl was struggling to get on her feet, and Red Reynard had lifted his heavy boot, as if to kick her.

“Get behind me,” said Klamath John, “and I’ll defend you!”

He caught her by the hand and fairly threw her against the wall, at the same time whipping out a revolver and stepping in front of her.

Nothing could have been more surprising to the scout, for he had about made up his mind that Klamath John had lost his life when he tried to climb the rope that swung in the dripping mist over the mouth of the tunnel. But here Klamath John was, appearing at an opportune moment to defend the girl from the abuse of Red Reynard.

The daring and defiant manner of Klamath John astonished Red Reynard. He stopped, and drew his knife.

“So you’ll interfere, will ye?” he snarled. “Then I’ll make a quick finish of you!”

He stooped for an opening, with the naked knife held in his hand, and Klamath John tried to throw up 75his revolver. The revolver caught in Klamath John’s coat, slowing his movement.

The next moment Red Reynard would have been upon him, and probably would have sunk the knife to his heart. But a shot came through the open window, knocking the knife out of Red Reynard’s hand. Following the shot came Buffalo Bill, who entered the room with a flying leap.

Red Reynard whirled around, startled and unnerved, his hand stinging with pain. The other men had already left their stools and seized their weapons. They stared at Buffalo Bill, who, standing by the window, seemed the coolest man there, notwithstanding his spectacular entrance.

The girl might have gone out at this juncture, if Jim Benton, the prisoner who had escaped from the island, had not appeared, blocking the door. He was wrapped in a blanket that dripped water as he walked, and he seemed to have just come out of the river.

“Down him!” he screamed, indicating the scout. “That man is Buffalo Bill!”

The great scout seemed to stand even more erect, while his fine face flashed defiance.

“Yes, I am Buffalo Bill!” he declared. “It’s a name I’m not ashamed to own.”

With a swift motion he stripped off the disguising beard. Then his hands came up with lightning quickness, each holding a cocked revolver. One of them covered Red Reynard and the other swung around toward the group at the other side of the room.

76“I have you all covered,” he announced coolly. “Stand where you are!”

Instead of obeying, one of the rascals lifted his revolver, thinking to use it.

The weapon in the scout’s right hand cracked, and the villain dropped his arm with a howl, the revolver falling from his hand to the floor. The scout’s bullet had broken the arm near the elbow.

“Hands up!” the scout commanded. “And stand where you are!”

Klamath John, who had staggered against the wall, seemed dazed by what had happened. The girl was trying to reach the half-open door. Red Reynard yelled to her to stop, and in the same breath yelled to his men to shoot Buffalo Bill.

“Gimme a pistol, and I’ll down him!” roared Benton, and he picked his chief’s revolver from the floor.

But as he rose with it in his hand, Buffalo Bill’s deadly weapon again spoke, and Benton dropped back against the wall, badly wounded, a bullet in his shoulder. Unfortunately, in his fall he blocked the door to some extent.

Again the scout’s voice rang:

“Stand where you are! I don’t want to kill anybody, but necessity knows no law. I’ll do it, if you crowd me. That girl wants to get out of this room, and she shall go. I expect to follow her, and offer her aid, if I can. And I’ll shoot the first man who interferes with her.”

The cool defiance of the great scout was astonishing. 77He seemed not to know the meaning of fear, as he thus faced those desperadoes. Several of them were squirming, and he saw that more than one was willing to take even desperate chances. If they rushed him in a body, they might overpower him, or kill him. They knew it, but feared his quick revolvers. To further impress them, he shot off the neck of a whisky bottle that stood on a slab table at the end of the room, near one of them.

“You see that!” he said.

The revolver roared again, and the bullet cut through a small hole in the wall.

“I can drive nails with these things!” he cried, as if boasting.

There was a nail by the door, used for a hanger of some kind. His revolver cracked, and the nail disappeared. He swung the weapon farther around, causing one of the men to duck his head, and the tin cup on the wall flew, with a clatter, across the room, hurled by the bullet.

“This is easy work!” he said. “Do you want a bullet in your eye?”

His next bullet smashed the oil lamp that lighted the room. It was his intention to put out the light without warning, in the hope that the girl and he could escape in the darkness that followed.

“Through the door!” he yelled to her, as he went across the room with quick bounds. Then he heard the girl scream, and he believed she ran outside.

A man stood before him in the doorway whom he 78thought to be Klamath John. The scout gave a push which sent this man reeling before him through the opening.

The man was Red Reynard. He had recovered possession of his revolver, and he now fired at the scout. But the bullet went wild.

Inside the house pandemonium reigned. The desperadoes were rushing toward the door and the open window, yet were impeded by the darkness and by frequent collisions.

Buffalo Bill took a snapshot at Red Reynard, which dropped the rascal in his tracks; then he looked round for the girl, but failed to see her.

Two of the desperadoes came tumbling through the door to the outside. Both were yelling.

Buffalo Bill ran along the side of the cabin, away from the river, thinking the girl had gone in that direction, but he still failed to see her. Nor did he see Klamath John, whose sudden appearance at the cabin had been so startling and puzzling.

A rattle of revolver fire opened up, as the outlaws began to shoot at imaginary forms by the river. And the scout discovered that men were running toward the cabin from various directions.

Nevertheless, he lingered by the corner of the big cabin, and in his anxiety for the girl he even called to her, though he did not know her name.

His call attracted the attention of the men by the door, and some came in his direction, forcing him to hurry along.

79Soon he had half circled around the house, to find himself again by the river, with the big bluff that seemed part of the cabin towering over his head. The darkness was favorable here, and he dropped down close by the bluff.

Men passed him at a quick run, and he heard them calling to each other down by the edge of the water. Then he heard the thump of oars in a boat. In the midst of this he was sure he caught the voice of Red Reynard giving orders.

Two of the men came running back from the river, passing so close to the scout that he might have touched them with his outstretched hand. They did not discover him, but his position there was so exposed and perilous he changed it, sliding away from the bluff, out through the darkness. He did not try to get the boat which had brought him, as he believed it had been found by the outlaws.

“Benton got away from Flynn and Cudjo,” was his thought. “And Klamath John is still living! That will be news for them. He seems to be one of Red Reynard’s men, yet he stood up for that girl handsomely, and I respect him for that. I wonder what became of him, and what became of the girl? If I stay here, though, trying to find out, I’ll run into a bullet pretty soon, and that may end things for me.”

As he thus thought, he was slipping along the ground away from the cabin and the bluff.

When he was far enough out to make it safe, he rose to his feet. Then, after a few minutes of waiting 80and hesitation, he shaped his course for the island.

This was now of paramount importance, for he believed that Cudjo and the Irishman would be captured there by the desperadoes, guided by Benton, if warning was not conveyed to them quickly.

CHAPTER XI. THE RETREAT.

Hurrying along at a pace that left the cabin rapidly behind, Buffalo Bill soon was made aware that some one was in front of him. His thought on making this discovery was that the desperadoes had got ahead of him and were trying to cut him off. He stopped, and the noise ceased when he came to a standstill.

Having stood without motion for several minutes the scout heard a sliding sound.

“Ah! One of the scoundrels is trying to slip on me!” was his thought, and he stared through the gloom, and finally saw a human form crawling softly over the grass toward him.

When it was close up he dropped down on it. There was a smothered exclamation, which he recognized as coming from Michael Flynn.

“This you, Flynn?” he said.

“I dunnaw who I am. L’ave me go! Who’s this that’s shpakin’?”

“Cody.” Buffalo Bill released the Irishman, who rolled over, puffing and grunting.

A timid voice sounded in the darkness.

“Dat you, Marse Cody?”

“So you’re here, too, Cudjo? Flynn, I hope I haven’t hurt you. We’ve got to be moving! Why did you leave the island?”

“’Twas the nagur’s fault that the prisoner got away, 82and thin we heard the shootin’ and thought mebbe you was in nade. So, that’s why we come. Begorra, I think you’ve cracked me windpipe! But it’s betther yez did it than anither.”

The young Irishman sat up, breathing heavily. Cudjo slid into view out of the gloom.

“Thank Heaven, Marse Cody, dat you’s livin’! When I heerd dem guns goin’ I ’lowed dat you was dead sho’ ’nough.”

“I got into a little scrimmage down there, which I’ll tell you about in a minute. Just now we’d better hustle along. You are all right, Flynn?”

“I think me neck is cracked, but it’s shtill hangin’ togither. Wurra! But ye’ve got fingers of iron! Yis, I’m ready to go an. It’s back to the island, I suppose? The canoe is right off there undher the bank.”

“The island will be a dangerous place, since Benton got away, though he is now wounded. He returned to the village. We’ll have to abandon most of the goods on the island, I’m afraid. But I’ve got to risk something to get my clothing. That disguising served me no good turn whatever. Lead the way to the canoe, Flynn.”

They were soon in it and paddling quietly up the stream.

When they gained the island they were sure none of the desperadoes had been there yet, for everything was undisturbed.

The scout threw his clothing into the canoe, and they tumbled into it such things as they did not wish to lose, and then paddled across to the mainland.

83As they drew the canoe up under the bank there they heard some of the outlaws coming up the stream in a boat. The boat landed on the island and the occupants went ashore. It was plain they were under the leadership of Jim Benton.

“Now!” whispered the scout. “We’ll get out of here while they’re crashing round over there.”

So saying, he turned the nose of the canoe upstream, and they paddled on close by the bank, screened by the darkness.

They pulled inshore a mile above. There they drew the canoe out of the water, and tried to hide it securely under some willows. Then they took what things they had brought and climbed ashore, where the scout changed clothing.

Sitting in the darkness, Buffalo Bill told his story, which drew wondering comments and exclamations from his hearers.

All sounds from the village and the island had died away, or were lost in the distance.

“We must first find a place to cache these things,” said the scout, when he had finished his story. “And we want a place in which we can hide. There’s no good cover along the stream, so I suggest that we strike for the high cliff wall. As we saw it to-day, it is not far from here; and my binoculars showed many bushes and trees there.”

As they pushed on, they talked of Klamath John, whom they had thought dead; of the girl whom the scout had seen, and of Red Reynard. When they came 84close up to the wall which was their objective point, they heard something moving there.

“Wan av the divils lukkin’ f’r us here!” whispered Flynn. “Begorra, he’s thraveled fast!”

Cudjo’s eyes rolled in the direction of the sound.

“Marse Cody, dat sounds like de ’gator. Dem creeturs travels on lan’ sometimes.”

“Keep quiet a minute, while I see what it is.”

The scout put down his bundle and stole away. Soon they heard him laugh, and then heard a quick trampling of heavy feet.

“I’ve got the ’gator, Cudjo!” he called softly. “Come on, now, I won’t let it bite you.”

They discovered that he had captured a horse, that was saddled and bridled and had apparently but lately escaped from its rider.

“This is a good find!” he said. “I shall return to that village on his back. It will get me there quicker.”

Cody tied the horse with the lariat that was attached to the saddle, and when he had done that he began to search for a secure hiding place. The capture of the horse had determined him suddenly to return to the cabins, leaving Flynn and Cudjo in hiding at this point.

CHAPTER XII. RED REYNARD’S PLANS.

Red Reynard, the Fox, did not lose his craftiness because of his rage. He had been wounded, but not seriously; he had received a slight scalp wound, which for the moment had dropped him like an ox in the shambles; and his right hand and arm still tingled painfully. But he considered himself as good as whole.

He had made a desperate effort to capture the daring scout, and in that had failed. But the girl who had tried to escape had not succeeded, and that was balm to his sore spirit. Now he gathered his desperadoes around him in the big cabin, to counsel with them as to what could now be done.

“Where’s Benton?” he said, when he had looked them over.

A search outside revealed Jim Benton lying unconscious; so that the possibility of securing further information from him was eliminated.

Klamath John had disappeared, and the talk of the outlaws showed they supposed him to be with Buffalo Bill.

Red Reynard sat in the lamplight, boldly enough, for he believed the scout was not near, and before him gathered his men, all desperate and daring, as he was himself. Red Reynard was not a bad-looking man except for a few things. He had a low brow and a 86heavy shock of hair. Beyond that, his countenance seemed so open and frank it would have deceived most men. Yet when his gray eyes were studied closely, they revealed the cunning which had given him the name of the Fox.

“What’s to be done?” he said. “We’ve got to git that feller. One o’ you go and fetch up the horses and have ’em ready.”

One of the men departed hastily.

“He called himself Buff’lo Bill, and I reckon he was, jedgin’ by the way he could sling lead,” one of the men began. “And takin’ Buff’lo Bill won’t be easy. How he got in hyer is what rattles me.”

“He’s in here,” said Red Reynard, “and that’s the important thing; we’re going to see now that he don’t git out. Benton said he came down the river. He must have got some notion that the river was safe, and so tackled it. And he’s here! But if he came in by the river, he’ll never git out.”

He pointed to two men.

“You, Bill and Jim, take yer guns and cut out for the lower openin’. If he tries it there, pot him. But it’s my opinion he won’t try to git out. He’s got some men with him, and he’s here for biz.”

“What can he do?” was asked.

“Well, he’s about killed Benton already. And Sutton’s got his arm broke all into splinters. He can creep up on us and serve us the same, can’t he, one at a time? He’s here for business. It’s his way. We’ve got to git him, and them that’s with him.”

The two men selected to go to the lower opening 87rose from their seats, slid through the door, and vanished. Obedience was one of the things required by Red Reynard. He ruled with an iron hand, though he usually gloved it with persuasive words.

“It’s my opinion he’ll be back ag’in,” he said. “He’s one o’ them devils that never knows when to stop. And he’ll be back to-night, since he’s seen the girl. That will be our chance.

“The moon will be up in less’n an hour. Some of us will ride along the river and out ’round. He’ll see us, no doubt, and he’ll git the idee we’re out huntin’ for him. Well, we will be, but some of us will be back here, laying for him.

“When he sees the gang that’s out, then he’ll come on in ag’in, and then will be the chance for the men that’s left here. If they post themselves in the right places, they can’t fail to see him, and if they don’t down him in the moonlight, I’ll want to know why.”

They talked for a number of minutes, after which a door was opened, into what proved to be a closet, and out of the closet Red Reynard brought some queer-looking garments.

In the meantime the horses had been brought up and were outside, saddled and bridled.

Red Reynard and some of his men donned the queer garments the chief produced. The effect was rather startling and sinister. They were clothed and masked in white. There were holes in the head parts of the garments for eyes, and on the bosom of each was the outline of a skull and crossbones in red.

Thus clothed and masked, Red Reynard and his men 88mounted the horses that had been brought up to the cabin, and departed from the village, riding close by the river, and following in the general direction taken by Buffalo Bill.

The scout had already set out for the village from the hiding place he had chosen at the foot of the high cliff wall. He had left behind him a negro who was perfectly willing to stay in hiding, and an Irishman who had voiced some strenuous objections. Flynn was not pleased to be left out of this “advinture.” He declared that in accompanying the scout it was adventure he sought, and he demanded his full share. But there was no horse for the Irishman, and the scout did not at that time desire his genial company.

Buffalo Bill kept close by the rocky cliffs for a while. He believed the horse had escaped from one of Red Reynard’s men, and had grazed along that cliff. When its tracks were seen in the morning, he did not want them to point too plainly to the hiding place.

By and by the scout turned the head of the horse toward the river. He did not think danger awaited him near the cliff. So he rode rapidly, through the white moonlight, for the moon had risen some time before; and soon found himself at the edge of the river. Here he drew the horse down into a walk, and kept a wary watch for Red Reynard’s men.

Though he was careful, the trees prevented him from seeing far ahead; and suddenly in the trail appeared those terrible figures—members of the Clan of the Skull and Crossbones, as the followers of Red Reynard called themselves.

89“Halt!” they cried, covering Buffalo Bill with their rifles.

To obey was certain death.

The scout’s right hand swung up, and his revolver flamed, dropping a man out of his saddle.

As the revolver sounded, the scout hurled himself backward off his horse. Striking behind a rock, he went rolling over and over.

There was a quick, sputtering fire of revolvers, but the outlaws used their weapons in such haste that the scout remained untouched. He sprang to his feet, when screened by some bushes, and began to run toward the river in zigzag fashion.

As he gained the water’s edge, with those revolvers cracking behind him and bullets cutting through the bushes, he seized and hurled a heavy stone as far out into the water as he could, where it struck with a splash.

Just below this bank he had left the canoe, and he now sprang down and into it, cutting the painter and pushing the canoe along close by the shore. As he did so, he heard the outlaws reach the bank above him.

“He jumped into the river,” he heard Red Reynard say. “I heard the splash. But he’s got to come up. Shoot him as soon as his head shows.”

He kept the canoe moving slowly along under the bank, and heard the outlaws talking above as they watched for him to show his head on the surface of the moonlit river, where it would have been an easy target.

90“There he is!” was yelled suddenly, and revolvers cracked again.

Looking out in curiosity, the scout saw that the head of a saurian had been shoved up out of the water; but it went down when the bullets struck it.

The outlaws discovered their mistake, and while some cursed, others laughed.

The canoe was moving on with the current, and already Buffalo Bill was several yards from the point where he had set it in motion.

The outlaws ran along the bluff, staring into the water, but under the bluff the scout’s canoe kept steadily on its way, unseen by them.

“I believe he’s drowned!” “Mebbe that critter swallered him!” “No, he’s bound to come up; keep a sharp watch!”

These were some of the things Buffalo Bill heard.

“Perhaps he’s hidin’ under the bank!”

The scout dipped his paddle and sent the canoe along faster when he heard that.

Two of the men came tumbling down the bank to look for him there. These men saw him, even though under the bank the light was dim, and they called out their discovery. One of them fired at him.

The scout’s return shot knocked the fellow into the water.

Wild cries were heard on the bank above, and more men came tumbling down.

The canoe was right against the shore. The scout slid out of it, sending it on with a push, and then crouched low by the roots of a tree. His situation 91was critical, but he had two good revolvers and knew how to use them. The current drew the boat away from the shore.

The desperadoes who had leaped down the bank saw it and began to shoot at it, under the impression that the scout was in it; and those who had remained above began, also, to fire on the canoe. In addition, there were excited cries and shouted commands.

Under cover of the noise and confusion, Buffalo Bill crept back along the shore, screened by the high bank and by bushes, and gained a point beyond that where he had entered the canoe. He began to feel safe again, as the shooting at the canoe continued, and all the desperadoes, chasing it, were moving downstream.

Before they discovered that the canoe was empty, and returned, the daring scout had climbed up the bank, and had concealed himself in a scanty growth of bushes, where he lay closely hidden, when they came running back to search along the shore for him.

The disgust and indignation of the desperadoes passed all bounds, and they were accusing each other angrily.

“He must ’a’ got into the river, after all,” said Red Reynard; “and by this time he may be on the other side. Some o’ you fellows take the canoe and go over there.”

The search was continued, and one of the men looked into the very hiding place where the scout lay, without seeing him. From the other shore to which they had crossed in the canoe, men shouted that nothing could be found there.

92Knowing that the desperadoes were so aroused that the peril of venturing into the village would be too great, Buffalo Bill retreated, as soon as he could do so safely, and returned to the spot where he had left Flynn and Cudjo.

CHAPTER XIII. SURPRISING DISCOVERIES.

Throughout the remainder of that night, and all the next day, Buffalo Bill and his companions remained close in hiding by the high cliff wall to which they had retreated.

At intervals they saw men riding by, and once or twice some of these men came near enough to give them much uneasiness. Yet they were undiscovered.

Fortunately, they had brought food from the island, and in the scout’s drinking flask was some water; so that they did not suffer from hunger and thirst.

Though in terror of the outlaws, Cudjo was pleased to be that far from the river, as, to his mind, it lessened the danger he felt he was in from the “’gator.”

When night came, Buffalo Bill was ready to try again to enter the village. The belief that a great deal of gold was there did not lure him, nor was he moved at the moment by his desire to capture Red Reynard, but thoughts of that helpless young woman in the midst of those conscienceless scoundrels, where she received such inhuman treatment, stirred him deeply. He resolved to make a determined effort to locate her and effect her rescue that night, for he was sure she was held against her will. What he had seen and heard convinced him of that predicament.

The scout’s plan of taking the Irishman and Cudjo with him delighted Flynn, but was not so hilariously 94received by the darky. Yet Cudjo prepared to go, for the very good reason that he feared to stay alone. Whatever the dangers, he felt safer close by the scout’s side.

They set out before the rising of the moon, that they might reach the village while darkness held. As they approached it, they crept down to the river’s edge, and moved along under shelter of the high bluff.

When the moon rose, they were ensconced in a growth of bushes not far from the big cabin where the exciting events of the previous night had occurred. The moonlight flooded the single street of the village, and shone bright on the surface of the stream. By it men were seen moving about, though none were quite near.

When he had watched a while, Buffalo Bill ventured to creep forth and up to the cabin. Then he lay in the shadows, by the bluff that seemed to join the cabin and towered high above the water’s edge.

As he lay there, waiting and watching, a startling thing happened: A door opened close by him, in what he had thought was solid rock, and two men came out. They were Red Reynard and another, whom the scout soon recognized as Bat Stevens, the scoundrel to whom Red Reynard’s letter had been addressed. They were talking in low tones, and as they passed close by the concealed scout, they spoke of the girl, showing by what they said that she was still with them, but had been giving them trouble.

“I’ll tame her, or break her neck,” said Red Reynard harshly. “The way she carries herself, you’d 95think she was a queen. If Buffalo Bill is still livin’, and if he comes to-night, we can git him.”

They passed on, and the sounds of their voices died away.

The scout stared hard at the wall where the door had opened, though it was now closed, and at the risk of detection he crawled over to it and felt along it with his fingers. He found in one of the inequalities of the surface a hole made for a key, and he knew then that the door was not of rock, but of boards. Having a bunch of keys on a ring in his pocket, he took them out and began to try the lock.

Stooping there in the darkness, for at that point the shadows lay heavily, he worked long and patiently, twisting and turning the keys in an effort to find one that would throw the bolt.

As he thus worked, he heard footsteps approaching. Thrusting the keys into his pocket, he dropped down. In a moment or two Flynn and Cudjo came crawling up to him.

“Dat you, Marse Cody?” Cudjo whispered. “One o’ dem men said you was daid!”

“That’s what brought us,” said Flynn. “Whin they wint by us, they was shpakin’ av yez, and wan av thim said you was dead. I didn’t belave it, havin’ seen yez so racintly, but we kem to find out.”

“They were just hoping me dead, no doubt. Keep watch along by the side of the cabin there, Flynn. There’s a door here, and I’m trying to open it. If we’re seen, we’ll jump along the bank and get off that way. Keep your eyes open, Cudjo.”

96Buffalo Bill began again to work at the keyhole, with the darky and Flynn now standing as sentinels.

At length a key which fitted but poorly threw the bolt, and the door swung slowly open, revealing a dark hole.

“Step inside!” the scout commanded, and when they were in with him, he locked the door carefully. “I don’t know where we are, but we’ll see.”

He struck a match and held it aloft.

They were in a large room that seemed to have been hewn or dug out of the bluff. It lay behind the big cabin, and he was sure that it connected with the cabin by an inner door. He recalled that the girl had come from a door on that side of the cabin, and he wondered if she were not now held a prisoner somewhere in this place.

The match went out, but the scout and those with him had got a good look at the room they were in. They had noticed that, though damp and close by the river, the room seemed to be filled with stores of various kinds. Bags and boxes were on the floor, and on the walls saddles and blankets.

“I wondher if anny of that gold is in this place?” Flynn whispered.

“I heahs de river down dar somewhars,” Cudjo declared, thinking of the “’gator.” “Marse Cody, we’d better git out o’ dis. What we gwine tuh do if dem men come back?”

“I want to learn if that girl is held anywhere in here.”

“But if we’s cotched in heah, Marse Cody?”

97“What I’m axin’ mesilf is, can there be anny gold in here?” said Flynn. “Bedad, the bags we sane on the flure was too big, but I think I’ll thry wan av thim, to see what they howld.” He stopped and felt about. “Lind me a match, Cody! Ah! I have wan mesilf! I’ll sthrike it, and luk round ag’in. Wurra! but this is the iligant adventure! In the cave av the robbers, wid bags of money layin’ round f’r the takin’. I’ve dr’amed av such things, Cody, maybe the drame is goin’ to come thrue.”

He scratched his match, and, seeing a bag lying at the other end of the room, close by the wall, he went up to it. It lay in an irregular heap. When he stooped to touch it, the bag seemed to move. He sprang back, letting the match fall.

“Cody,” he said, “come here.”

His voice trembled, but he had courage enough to strike another match. As the match flamed, he kicked at the bag, and a man rolled from under it.

Cudjo uttered a shriek which he tried hard to suppress, and Flynn tumbled back in amazement. The scout whipped out a revolver.

But the flaming match was still held by Flynn, and by its light they saw the beardless face of the man they had known as Klamath John.

“Hello!” he said, and then the match went out.

CHAPTER XIV. ASSAULT AND BATTERY.

“Hello, it is!” said Flynn, striking another. “An’ it’s you? By the piper that played before Moses, but this is a quare place to be findin’ yez in.”

“No stranger than to find you here,” was the answer.

“Perhaps not,” said the scout, “but what were you doing here, hiding under that bag?”

“That’s explained easily. I came in here to see if I couldn’t help that girl, and then I heard you come in. Red Reynard and a man had gone out, and I thought you were them. So I got under that bag, for I didn’t want to be seen. I heard you talking, but the bag kept me from recognizing your voices, or else I was too scared to remember how they sounded.”

As before, he seemed sincere.

“You came here to help the girl?” said the scout.

“Yes. I’ve been lying round outside almost ever since last night, to do that, ever since I saw her and saw you, in the cabin. I’m sure she’s in here. I heard her last night, after you had gone, and to-night I heard her again. She’s in here. Just where I don’t know.”

He kept his voice low, and spoke rapidly, as if he valued time.

“What do you know about her?”

“Nothing, except what I heard.”

99“What was that?”

“That she’s the daughter of a prosperous ranchman named Fernald, who has a son in the army, and she was carried off by Red Reynard through revenge for something the ranchman did. He intends to force the girl to be his wife. Her folks don’t know where she is, nor anything about her; and, of course, they don’t dream she’s in this place, which everybody thinks can’t be entered.”

“How’ does it come that yez wasn’t dhrowned?” said Flynn, mentioning a subject of which he had talked much since learning that Klamath John was still alive.

“I hardly know, myself.”

“Ye climbed that rope?”

“Yes. I was hours doing it, it seemed. Then I kept on, after getting above the mist; and finally I reached the top of the wall there. I stayed there in a hole all night; and the next day I got down into the Cup, though I nearly broke my neck doing it.”

“An’ why did yez lave the canoe? Was it treachery yez was playin’?”

The scout stopped whatever answer Klamath John might have made.

The match had burned to Flynn’s fingers and he dropped it, thus plunging the room into darkness.

“Sh!” said the scout.

“What is it?” asked Flynn.

“I heard something.”

“Marse Cody,” said Cudjo, his voice trembling, “I heahs dat river, and maybe it’s de ’gator!”

But the scout heard it again—a step, and instantly 100this was followed by a scream in a woman’s voice, followed by a fall, and a loud oath from a man. Though intervening walls deadened them, they were enough to electrify Buffalo Bill’s little party.

“It sounded over that way,” he said, and he moved in that direction, striking a match as he went.

As the light flamed up, he saw a box before him, against the wall. It was open and showed candles, which had been stored there by the outlaws, with other things.

The scout snatched a candle and stuck the flaming match to the wick. Holding up the lighted candle, he looked about, and all listened again for those sounds.

Klamath John stood behind the other men, having followed them.

“That was the girl,” he said, in a low tone. “I heard something like that before, and I thought it came from over that way. I was working to get over there, when you fellows came in.”

The scout moved on, with the others creeping at his heels.

The uneven floor of earth and natural stone fell away toward the river, and became damp, and then oozy; but that was the direction from which the sounds had come. Where the floor was the lowest, they beheld a dark line of water. The water of the river rose there through a large hole which connected with the stream.

“One might get out that way, by diving,” said the scout, when he observed it. “It will be well to remember that, if we’re cornered in here.”

101Cudjo looked at the water with frightened eyes. “Marse Cody,” he said, in a hollow whisper, “dat ’gator could come in frough dat place!”

“Kape shtill, an’ the baste won’t know yez aire in here,” was the advice of the Irishman.

“But, Marse Flynn, dem creeturs kin smell scan’lous good, dey kin smell a mile!”

“Wurra! Kape shtill, will yez?”

Close by the water, and to be reached over a jumble of slimy stones, the scout now saw a door.

“Could those sounds have been beyond that door?” he asked, flashing the candlelight upon it.

“Like’s not,” said Klamath John. “It shows, anyway, that there’s a room beyond this. I’m guessin’ that room is a prison, where the girl is held.”

Flynn stared at him. “Begorra, if yez aire wan av Red Reynard’s min,” he remarked, “ye’d ought to know what’s behind that dure!”

“One of Red Reynard’s men?”

“That’s what I’m sayin’! If ye’re wan av thim, ye ought to know this place. Ar-re yez playin’ a game wid us ag’in? It’s me that will cr-rack yer nick, av yer ar-re!”

“I’m playing no game!”

“No? Thin, be all the powers, what did yez mane by wearin’ thim whiskers and that wig? And why did yez thry to sind us to death in that river, afther preparin’ to save yersilf by jumpin’ f’r that rope? Thim questions have been ’atin’ into me, an’ the answers to thim would be roight welcome.”

“I can explain all that, I——”

102“Don’t speak so loud,” the scout ordered. “Cudjo, come on here and hold this candle. I heard a sound there again. Flynn, back there I saw a miner’s pick or two. Will you get them and bring them?”

The scout moved forward, climbing over the rocks till he reached the door. Cudjo followed him and took the candle, while Buffalo Bill bent over by the door and put his eye to the keyhole.

As he did so, he became aware of the fact that beyond this door was a lighted room. Footsteps were heard in it, and, as he listened, with ear against the keyhole, he thought he heard a groan.

“Some one is in there!” he said.

Flynn and Klamath John came over the slippery rocks, armed with picks they had found in the stores, and Flynn had also a huge hammer.

“Whurroo!” he whispered. “We can bate the dure down with these things.”

“Sh!” warned the scout. Then, all listening, they heard a groan.

Following this groan, came the sound of an opening door, and footsteps. Then Red Reynard’s voice reached them.

“Git up!” he commanded harshly. “I don’t stand no more of this pretendin’. There’s nothing the matter with you but stubbornness, and I can cure that with a cowhide.”

Klamath John pushed close up to the scout.

“That’s Red Reynard,” he whispered.

In intense excitement they listened.

“Git up, I say!” they heard Red Reynard command. 103Then there was a sound as if he had seized and was dragging some one; and this was followed by a scream, which seemed near now coming through that keyhole.

“In the name of Heaven, can’t we do something?” whispered Klamath John.

Buffalo Bill began to apply his keys to the keyhole, working quickly. One of them stuck, and when he tried to get it out, he twisted it, and it remained fixed, so that he could not move it.

The woman screamed again, this time as if she were being murdered.

This was too much for even the calm nerves of Buffalo Bill. He caught the big hammer from the hand of the Irishman and swung it against the door, which shook under the terrific blow.

A curse was heard, and the screams of the girl increased.

“Stand guard there, you fellows, with your revolvers, while I smash in this door!” the scout ordered. “We’ll fight these devils to the death, if we have to.”

Cudjo was nothing loath to get back from that door, which was too near the water to suit him. So he set down the candle and retreated. When he had clambered to the top of the slippery rocks, he drew his revolver and stood guard, his eyes wandering round into the darkness beyond the candlelight.

“If we ain’t all killed in heah, it will be a wonder!” he declared.

The hammering blows of the scout were making the 104room resound, and the door trembled and creaked. Cudjo suddenly uttered a little screech of fear.

“What’s the matther wid yez?” Flynn demanded angrily.

“Marse Flynn, dat candle is walkin’ off all by itself!” Cudjo chattered. “See it dar!”

Flynn looked at the candle, and uttered a cry of amazement. “By all the saints, the nagur’s right, or I’m dr’amin’.” He went climbing across the slippery rocks toward the candle, as Buffalo Bill swung the hammer again and brought it down against the door.

Cudjo was in a panic, but still he poked up his head, to see what was happening to the candle.

“One o’ dem ’gators!” he shouted.

“Yis, but ’tis a little wan. Ye crazy nagur, ye set the candle down on the crather’s back!”

A small saurian, no more than a foot or two long, had been lying close by the water, and the darky had taken it for a rock. In his haste to get away from the water, he had stuck the candle down on the creature’s back. It had been too sluggish to move until the melted tallow ran down, burning it into activity.

“A movin’ candleshtick!” said Flynn humorously. “Cudjo, yez ought to git a patent on it. ’Twould pay ye big.”

He stretched out his hand to take the candle from the back of the saurian, but he failed, for with a motion so quick that it surprised him the lizardlike creature slipped into a hole in the wall, taking the candle with it.

“Begorra, did ye say that?” said Flynn, in astonishment. 105“It’s goin’ to light up the rats, and the other crathers that delight in darkness.”

The candlelight went glimmering into the hole where the saurian was disappearing, and the room began to grow dark. Buffalo Bill stopped swinging the hammer.

“Get another candle!” he ordered, and Klamath John, nearest to them, hurried to get candles.

On the top of the slippery rocks Cudjo was muttering like one demented.

“De big ’gator will come tuh find what’s ’come o’ de little one,” he said. “Marse Cody, we’d better git out ob heah befor’ it does!”

He began to slide down from the rocks, getting as far from the water as he could.

“Lave me have a whack at the dure wid the hammer!” Flynn requested, when candles had been lighted.

A shot sounded, and they knew it was fired at the door, but the bullet did not come through. The girl was now apparently trying to get out of the room where she was held, and Red Reynard had turned the revolver on the door which the scout was battering.

Klamath John, at this juncture discovered that the door by which he and the scout’s party had come in had been opened, and that men were hurrying in through it. He announced his discovery, and began to shoot at the men he saw there.

“Put out the candles!” shouted Buffalo Bill.

Flynn gave them a kick that hurled them into the water, plunging the room in darkness.

Buffalo Bill still swung the hammer, the girl was 106screaming now as if attacked with hysteria, and the men who had entered the room where the scout and his companions were opened with their revolvers.

“Bedad, but it’s gittin’ war-rm in here!” said Flynn, as he dropped behind the rocks and answered the pistol fire of the men.

Klamath John yelled defiantly at the desperadoes, and worked his revolvers as fast as he could.

Buffalo Bill discovered the door was yielding to his persistent hammering. Splinters began to fly from it, and soon a blow sent the head of the hammer through the wood.

But more men had come to the help of Red Reynard in that room, and more men were crowding into the room where stood the gallant scout and his companions.

Flynn continued to shoot from behind the slimy rocks, but Klamath John stood forth boldly, as if he defied death.

The head of the scout’s hammer again sank through the door. Another blow broke a hinge, and the door swung sideways, revealing the lighted room behind.

Red Reynard was there, and now, with a snapshot at the scout, he commanded his men to take him.

The girl, who had apparently been in hysteria, sprang from a corner, and, clutching Red Reynard, tried to stop him, thus throwing him to the floor.

Klamath John, reckless to the last, fell from the top of the rocks, with a bullet through his body, but continued to work his pistols.

“Whurroo!” Flynn howled, in wild excitement. 107“We’re at the ind, Cody, but we’ll go down like min.” He fired again at the men who were running across the room. “Wan for ye, ye divils!”

Buffalo Bill sprang through the broken door and dashed toward Red Reynard, seemingly as reckless as Klamath John himself. But he did not reach Red Reynard, nor did that doughty desperado gain the side of the scout.

A tremendous explosion sounded.

When the scout picked himself up, after the explosion, which had hurled him heavily against the wall, he found that he was alone, except for Michael Flynn. The girl lay on the floor, some distance away. At the farther end of the room a fire was raging, and its light revealed all round him broken and jagged walls.

“’Twas the alligator, I’m thinkin’, which carried aff the candle, that done it,” said Flynn. “’Twas an ixplosion of gunpowder, d’ye mind. It tore the very divil out av this room, and knocked me into the middle of nixt wake. But I’m shtill livin’.”

“Marse Cody, I’se livin’, too!” Cudjo came crawling through the shattered door and over the fallen rocks. “I was hidin’ in a hole dar when de shootin’ was goin’ on, and when dat upsplosion done come, de rocks des kivered me as dey fell. But I’se still livin’, Marse Cody.”

Klamath John was found in a dying condition.

“I’d like to explain to you,” he whispered. “I was honest in all them things. I did find the letter and the stick pins, and I was only scared when I jumped out of the canoe and grabbed that rope. I don’t know who 108put the rope there, but I s’pose it was Red Reynard’s men.”

“But what made yez so mysterious about it?” asked Flynn. “Why wouldn’t yez come to Cody’s hotel? And why did yez wear the false whiskers and the like?”

“I was practicing,” was the unexpected answer.

“Practicing?”

“Yes, practicing for detective work. I wanted to be a detective. So I thought I’d try to fool you—fool Cody, I mean—and I thought if I could, I could fool anybody. That’s why I disguised myself. And I didn’t want to come into the town, because it would increase the danger of recognition.”

“Cody, what do yez think av that?” the Irishman asked presently. “Did yez iver hear annything like it?”

“I never did,” was the scout’s answer.

“But he was an honist man,” said Flynn. “Klamath John was honist.”

“Perfectly honest, and perfectly foolish in doing what he did.”

Red Reynard, Bat Stevens, and others of the leaders of the desperadoes were killed by the explosion and by the falling stones. The others, who lingered around and were seen by the scout the next day, were scattered by him and Flynn. One of them was captured, and he was forced to show the scout and his party the way out of the Cup. It was a hole in the eastern wall, hidden by vines, which the desperadoes had found after they had by chance gained the Cup’s interior by way of the river.

109When the scout and his companions went out through this hole, they took the gold abandoned by the desperadoes, and they took, also, the young woman, whom they restored to her father, presenting her at the same time a considerable quantity of the gold.

“And it was an iligant advinture!” said Flynn. “It would be har-rd to bate it!”

“You’d never git dis chile in dar ag’in,” said Cudjo.

“Because of the alligators? ’Twas wan av thim that saved us, whin he carried aff the candle and set fire to the powder magazine. They’re gr-reat crathers. Av that wan wasn’t kilt, I’d like him for a pet, begorra!”

“You can hab him, Marse Flynn,” said Cudjo, his eyes big and round. “Dem fings is called caymen by de folks heah, but dey’s sho’ nuffin’ but jes’ common alligators. And ’gators does lub de flesh ob de nigger. You cain’ never git dis chile in dar ag’in, not if dar was bags o’ gol’ in dar so heavy I couldn’t tote um.”

“Ah, but it was the iligant advinture!” said Flynn. “I wish I could have another wan like it.”

“I think I should enjoy an experience like that again, myself,” said the scout. “Perhaps we shall share in further adventures, you and I. What do you think, Mike?”

“Begorra, I’m game!” quoth Michael Flynn.

CHAPTER XV. THE BEWITCHED COMPASS.

Nevertheless, “game” as he was, Michael Flynn was destined not to take part in any more “iligant adventures” with the noted scout; at least, for several weeks. Buffalo Bill’s next commission took him far afield, and, when he was returning from its successful conclusion, caused him to lose his way while out on the Mexican desert near the border.

Holding his compass in his hand, Buffalo Bill looked at a round hill before him, which was very high and almost a perfect cone.

“This is queer!” he said, and, keeping the compass level on the palm of his hand, he walked slowly to the right for a dozen steps. He saw the compass needle swing slowly, pointing straight at the hill.

That there might be no mistake, the scout retraced his steps, studying the compass, and now he saw the needle swing steadily back. When he walked farther around, the needle swung still more, always pointing at the hill.

The sky was gray, so that the sun could not be seen. The ground under the scout’s feet, and for a considerable distance around, was hard-baked clay or stony, so that not a footstep showed in it. His feet had left no tracks.

“So it’s that which has made the compass act so strangely!” he said, looking at the hill. “This is unpleasant, 111and it might be serious. Here I’ve been walking hours, trusting to the compass, and find that it has been pointing to this hill. Now, where is north? The compass can’t tell me, for that hill has bewitched it. The hill must be full of magnetic iron.”

Stowing the compass in his pocket, he took out his knife and set it upright, with the point of the blade on his thumb nail.

There are few days so gray and cloudy that a knife so placed will not throw a shadow on the thumb nail; and opposite that shadow, of course, is the direction of the sun. When the time of day is known, together with the direction of the sun, north can be approximately ascertained.

But the air was filled with a smoky haze, and this, in addition to the cloudiness and grayness, made the sky so dark that the knife blade refused to cast its shadow.

“This is a go!” said the scout. “If I were in a northern forest I might find north by a study of the moss on the tree trunks, which is heaviest and reaches to a sharper point on the north side. But I’m in Old Mexico; there are no trees near me, and I suppose in this dry land moss hasn’t much chance to grow on tree trunks, or anywhere else.”

Cody took out the compass again and placed it on the palm of his hand. As a matter of curiosity, he walked toward the cone-shaped hill, and he studied the compass as he went.

“Straight at the heart of that hill it points!” he said, watching the needle. “And when I walk to one side 112or the other the needle shifts. I suppose if I should walk round the hill the compass would make a complete circle. I’ll try it.”

Accordingly, he set out along the base of the hill, holding the compass level.

As he expected, the needle continued to point at the hill.

By and by the scout walked up to the hill and inspected it. He saw that it was almost a solid mass of ore, and the compass showed him that it was magnetic iron.

As the scout continued on his way around the treeless hill, he heard voices. Instantly he sank down behind a screen of cactus, sliding the compass into his pocket and drawing a revolver.

“Some one here ahead of me, eh? White men, I think. And possibly outlaws.”

Soon he saw two men come in sight round the curve of the hill. The one who walked in front was tall, thin, and severe looking. He wore a high hat much out of place in that region, and black, dust-stained clothing. The man who followed him was short and squat, with a ponderous stomach. This man was dressed in dirty plaids, and his face had a worried look. He carried a large hand bag.

“Brofessor,” the scout heard him say, “uff de gompass tvist its head off in dot vay, vot ve going to do? Ve can’t neffer fint our feet tracks vat ve made in coming here yit.”

The man in front stopped, and the stumpy man behind came near running into him.

113“Henselman,” said the tall man, “this is a most peculiar mountain. It is, as you see, of iron—magnetic iron. Truly a wonderful phenomenon!”

“Unt de grazy gompass dinks it vos de Nort’ Pole, eh?”

“Just so, Henselman. The compass thinks this is the North Pole. We shouldn’t blame the compass. We——”

“Nein? Vot shall I plame? Me? I follow de gompass. It say: ‘Dis is de nort’!’ It dell me de lie. Am I to plame?”

Henselman dropped the hand bag and energetically hammered his breast.

“Dose gompass is a shackass!” he said. “Uff ve foller heem some more, efery dime we shall come right back to dis hill uff iron. T’ree dimes ve haf tried it alretty yet. And now we iss back here again. What shall ve do? Smash de gompass? Dot don’t fint us de vay nort’!”

“It would do no good to smash the compass. Let us rejoice, rather, that we have been led to such a phenomenon as this singular hill of magnetic iron. I observe from here that the top of the hill splits into two parts that slightly resemble horns. I shall have to add that detail to the notes I have taken.”

The tall man brought from an inner pocket of his black coat a leather-bound book, which held a pencil, and after squinting through his eyeglasses at the top of the hill, he began to write in the book with the pencil. Meanwhile, the rotund German stood looking about, with ill-concealed displeasure.

114“Honest men, I take them to be,” thought the scout. “Like me, they have been fooled by that magnetic hill, and have lost their way.”

When the scout rose into view behind the cactus the taller man stared at him blankly, while the stubby German tumbled backward with a sort of howl.

“Mein gracious!” he exclaimed. “Who iss dis?”

“I observe that the magnetic mountain has fooled you, the same as it did me,” said the scout, smiling at the German and speaking to the tall man. “And so we meet here, guided to this hill by the crazy antics of our compasses.”

The tall, severe-looking man fitted his eyeglasses to his prominent nose, and surveyed the scout.

“Do you belong here, my man?” he questioned. “Yes, we have lost our way. This is a magnetic hill, and the compass deviates to it and refuses to point to the magnetic pole. Hence, we were led out of our course, and now must be far astray, as we think we have been going in a wrong direction for a long time. If you can help us in our predicament we shall be greatly obliged, I assure you. I am Professor Felix Bounderby, and this is my servant. Fritz Henselman, a most estimable German, though at times a bit excitable. We are here in the interests of scientific knowledge.”

Buffalo Bill introduced himself, repressing the smiles he felt inclined to indulge in.

“You are an American scout, over here in Mexico, eh?” said Bounderby. “Or is this still Mexico? We’re not sure on that point. We’re not sure of anything, 115having lost our way and wandered we do not know how many miles.”

“I happen to be in the same boat,” said the scout, yet cheerily. “We can, of course, sit down here and wait until we get some sunshine to guide us, or we can make a guess at the direction we wish to go, and set out, trusting to luck.”

Professor Bounderby turned to Fritz Henselman.

“Henselman,” he said, “just chip off a piece of that ore, will you, and put it in the bag. I shall wish to use it in illustration of the lecture I shall give on this mountain, when we return to the university.”

The German took a hammer from the hand bag and began to beat at one of the small stones, trying to break it.

“I think I have heard that name—Buffalo Bill,” said Bounderby, addressing the scout.

“Yaw! I heert heem,” said the rotund German, hammering the stone. “Id vas in Yarmany, vhere I vas pefore I come to Unitet States.”

“This is a most remarkable hill,” remarked the professor. “I think it affected our compass many miles away. We were on a dim trail across there somewhere. We had been told to go north and to leave the trail at a certain point. We thought we went north, but now I am not sure of the direction which we followed. And you say that you were misled in like manner? It is truly wonderful.”

“Vhat trouples me,” said Henselman, cracking off a piece of the ore and throwing it into the hand bag, 116“is how are ve going to ged oudt uff dis? Vhen ve haf noddings to show de vay nort’ hew can ve fint id?”

“As I said, we can camp down here until we get a sight of the sun,” said the scout, “or we can set out and run the risk of not going in the right direction. Does the light seem a bit brighter, professor, than a while ago?”

“No, it seems even darker,” said Bounderby. “The atmosphere is very peculiar. I shall not be surprised if I learn eventually that there have been volcanic disturbances in this region, and that the darkness which we observe is attributed to gases and smoke from some volcano.”

The scout produced his knife and set the blade on his thumb nail, in the hope of getting a shadow, but failed again. He explained to Bounderby and Henselman what he was doing.

To all appearances, they were just what they claimed to be, and he saw that they were likely to get into all sorts of difficulties, in an unfamiliar region. Bounderby was no doubt a highly educated man along certain lines, but in the ability to meet such an emergency as this he was helpless as a child. Henselman was no better.

“If we had left any tracks,” said Bounderby, “we might hope to trace them back, and get out in that way. But the earth here is of volcanic formation, you will observe. At one point we crossed a small sand plain, and if we could find that, we could find the footprints we made in it.”

117“Yaw! I made feet tracks in id more as a foot deep!” said Henselman.

“But the wind was blowing, you will recollect, Henselman, and those tracks may be covered over. Besides, I doubt if we could find them, even if they were not.”

The professor fitted his glasses to his nose and gazed at the hill, then took them off and looked round in a helpless sort of manner.

Henselman held up his hand excitedly.

“Brofessor, I haf an itea!”

“Dear me, Henselman, you startled me! You have an idea? That is remarkable. What is it, Henselman?”

“Gif me de gompass unt I vill illustration id to you.”

“It is in the hand bag, Henselman.”

The fat German extracted the compass from the hand bag, shook it as if he would make sure it was in working order, and set it on the ground.

“You vill opserve, brofessor, unt likevise our frient here, dat dose gompass iss now bointing to dis magnedic iron moundain!”

“Yes, that is true,” Bounderby assented.

“Vale! Ton’d you see?”

“I see the needle pointing to the mountain, if that is what you mean, Henselman.”

“But de odder end uff de needle! Vere iss id bointing?”

“In the opposite direction, of course, Henselman.”

“Vale! Ven id vas bointing to de moundain ve follered id, unt id prought us here to dis place. Unt now 118uff ve foller yoost back again de vay de odder end uff de needle is bointing, we vill arrife at de blace vere ve comed from. Dot iss yoost so easy I vhonder I neffer dinks me uff id till dis minute.”

“But, see here, Henselman! On the other side of this hill the south pole of the needle points in a direction the very opposite of what it does here. Wherever the compass is placed, in going round this hill, the needle points at the hill. Your plan might do, if we knew just where we approached the hill, and could likewise be sure that in coming up to it we had not deviated any from a direct line. But as we can’t do that, your plan won’t work. We would be going away from the hill, it is true, but in which direction we should be going we could not know. We might be going south, when we wish to go north.”

The fat German dropped back to the ground with so heavy a thump that the breath was knocked out of him.

“Dot iss true!” he admitted. “So long as ve don’t know, vichefer vay ve go ve are sure to go wrong.”

CHAPTER XVI. TRACKS IN THE SAND.

As Buffalo Bill wished to keep moving, he determined to risk a guess at what was a northerly direction, and also to set out at once; and as Bounderby and the fat German did not care to remain behind, they accompanied him.

It did seem as if there were about three hundred and sixty-five chances of going wrong to where there was one of going right, as Bounderby asserted, yet the attempt to do something seemed better than inaction.

This brought a surprising discovery.

Within an hour’s time they reached a sandy area, which both Bounderby and the German declared to be the one they had crossed.

A search was instituted for the tracks which it was hoped could be readily found—the tracks they had made in crossing the sand on their way to the magnetic mountain.

They did not find the tracks, even though they covered a large area, but in a depression of the sandy plain Buffalo Bill came upon footprints of a woman. The thing was almost too surprising for belief, and he at once called the attention of his companions to his discovery.

“The tracks of a white woman,” he said, “here in a spot where one would think no white woman had 120ever been; and the tracks have not been long made. The woman was not an Indian, and she was not a Mexican, or, if a Mexican, she was not of the peon class. You will observe, too, that the woman walked with an alert, rapid, springy step.”

Bounderby and his German servant stared at the footprints.

“All of which,” the scout went on, “convinces me that the woman was an American, and that she was young. But what a young American woman is doing here passes my comprehension.”

“Maype she is fooled yoost de same as ve vas py de iron mountain?” suggested Henselman. “Unt now she iss trying to git avay from id. Nein?”

Buffalo Bill looked about, and he let his eyes follow as far as possible the tracks in the sand.

“That would not explain what a young American woman is doing here,” he said. “Come! I’m going to follow these tracks, and see what they mean.”

“Unt maype ve lost our own vay again!” Henselman protested.

“We haven’t found it yet, recollect!”

“Yaw! Go ahead.”

“The American young woman of fashion,” said the professor, in a learned tone, “is usually urban in her tastes. She may venture forth out of a city, but she never gets far from one. Therefore, I am under the impression, Mr. Cody, that if we continue to follow these steps we shall arrive sooner or later at or in the neighborhood of a city. That is scientific reasoning. I have more than once found a bone, and from that 121bone alone have been able to reconstruct the animal of which it was a part. We see these tracks, and——”

“Look there!”

The exclamation came from the scout, who had hurried on, unheeding the professor’s learned lecture. He was fairly trembling, as he pointed to other tracks, which joined those made by the woman he had declared to be a young American.

The low, sandy surface which held the tracks of the woman passed at this point close to higher ground, and from this higher ground, as from a leaping board, had sprung the maker of the other footprints.

What struck the scout more than anything else was the shape and character of these new tracks.

They resembled in some essentials the footprints of a man, in other respects they were like those of a bear, and in still others they looked like nothing the scout had ever seen in the way of tracks, and his experience and observation had been large.

Instead of waiting to find the explanation, he hurried on again, observing that the larger tracks kept close by those of the woman, as if the creature making them had been pursuing her. A hundred yards beyond, near the point where the sandy land ended in volcanic rocks, the tracks of the woman disappeared.

Buffalo Bill stared ahead, and drew his revolver.

“See that?” he said, when he was joined by Bounderby and the German.

“I see that the woman’s tracks no longer show,” said Bounderby. “And why not?”

122“She musd haf vings,” said the German.

“The creature that followed her caught her at this point and carried her on,” said the scout. “You will see that his feet sank more deeply into the sand afterward. He carried her, and as there seems to be not much sign of a struggle, I fancy that he moved so quietly in following her that he was able to overtake her before she knew he was near.”

“You think it was a man?” said Bounderby, sticking his eyeglasses on his nose and bending over to look at the tracks. “Dear me, this is remarkable!”

“You are a scientist! What made those tracks? A man? Or were they made by a beast? A while ago you said that often from a single bone you have been able to determine the form of the creature of which that bone was a part. Then, tell me what made those tracks!”

Bounderby got down on his knees and scrutinized the tracks. A call like that aroused his professional pride and put him on his mettle.

“Mr. Cody, that is the track of an orang-utan!” he declared, as he rose and dropped his eyeglasses from his nose with an air of finality.

“That is the track of an orang-utan. He sighted the young lady from the higher ground back there, as she walked through the lower ground. She had passed him, and he followed so slyly that she did not discover the fact, and right here he captured her and carried her away.” His voice trembled. “And that means, Cody, that we must follow at once. For, as you say, these tracks are not old. This may have been 123done even while we were at the iron mountain discussing what we should do.”

“But this is Mexico!” the scout protested. “Orang-utans are not found in Mexico.”

“Cody, no one would have believed that snow existed on the planet Mars, until astronomers discovered it as a fact. How this orang-utan got here I don’t know. The creatures may be indigenous to the country. However that may be, one is here, or has been here; and he has, it seems, seized a lady, whom you declare to be an American. It calls for an investigation.”

The scout started forward, and Bounderby and the German followed him. But they could not pursue the trail far, as in a short time they reached the limits of the sand, and after that the ground was of hard volcanic origin, and left no tracks.

“They were pointed in that direction when they reached the rocks here,” said the scout. “It is reasonable to infer that the creature continued in the direction he was going, though he may really have turned to the right or left.”

Buffalo Bill hastened on in the course he thought the creature had taken. Though urged by unwonted excitement and the drawing power of a strange mystery, he yet was as calm and careful as ever.

To know that a civilized woman was in that out-of-the-way place was a thing marvelously strange, yet it did not equal the stupendous discovery that an orang-utan was there.

But was the thing an orang-utan? Buffalo Bill was 124not yet ready to believe it, though he admitted that had he seen that footprint in a land where orang-utans were to be expected he should have guessed that animal at once. As singular as anything was that the creature had walked on its hind feet. Orang-utans do that at times, though not by choice; yet this creature had walked on its hind feet even before it reached and seized the woman.

The hills toward which it seemed the beast and its burden had gone were farther off than either the scout or Bounderby thought, so that the day was waning by the time they were reached. But neither there, nor in the ground passed over in reaching them, was any indication found of the singular thing that had captured the woman.

While Buffalo Bill still hunted about the base of the hills, loath to give up, the darkness that came early because of the queer character of the atmosphere, began to settle down, and they could do nothing further.

“We’ll try it again in the morning,” said the scout, still undaunted.

CHAPTER XVII. THE SPOTS OF LIGHT.

Professor Felix Bounderby and Fritz Henselman were sitting bolt upright, their backs against a tall white rock, which at a distance resembled the white wall of a tent.

They were asleep and snoring at a terrific rate, in spite of the fact that the morning was well advanced.

The reason for their somnolence was that the fatigues of the previous day had been unusually wearing, and its excitements had kept them up until a very late hour of the night.

Buffalo Bill, who had risen early, had walked away some distance, and was searching again for the tracks he had failed to find the evening before.

One thing pleased him. During the night the peculiar condition of the atmosphere had passed away, so that the sun, which rose red in the eastern sky, was, an hour afterward, shining with a clear, white light.

Knowing now which direction was the east, he had a knowledge of the points of the compass, even though his magnetic needle still pointed obstinately to the hill of magnetic iron.

The scout was returning from a vain search for tracks, when he came in sight of Bounderby and Henselman sitting against the white rock.

Suddenly Bounderby snorted, twisted uneasily, and opened his eyes; but he closed them again, and began once more to snore.

126A little later Henselman gave a similar snort, and slapped at his face as if a mosquito tickled it. A moment afterward he slapped again, so energetically that he was half aroused from his sleep. Then he tumbled forward on his knees, and put up his hands in supplication.

“Yaw!” he gurgled. “Blease, Misder Robber, ton’d shood me! Keep dose bull’s-eye lighd oudt uff my faces! Keep it oudt! Take my moneys, but ton’d shood me!”

Bounderby uttered a little squall, and sat up, and, hearing and seeing Fritz Henselman making that ridiculous appeal, he stared.

“Henselman,” he said, with a superior air, “kindly tell me what you are doing?”

Henselman opened his eyes, with a gurgling snort, stared around, and then gazed at Professor Felix Bounderby. His face had a look of blank foolishness.

“Yaw!” he gasped. “Dere vos no robber going to shood me, eh?”

“Of course not, Henselman! What put such a ridiculous notion into your head?”

“Unt nopody tidn’t t’row der light uff a pull’s-eye landern in my faces?”

“Certainly not, Henselman! Don’t be ridiculous. It was the sun shining in your face. See, the sun shines! I myself felt that light in my face; but it was the sunshine, and it awoke me. Thank Heaven for the glorious sunshine again, Henselman!”

The German still stared around. “But, brofessor,” 127he objected, “de sun iss not shining so dat it can hid us in de faces! De sun shines pehint dis rock. It coult nod haf peen der sunshine hid me der faces in. Nein!”

Bounderby stared, too, when he made that discovery.

“I must have dreamed that the sunshine struck me with blinding force in the face. It is such a change from yesterday that it had that effect. Henselman, that is the solution. Always remember that every phenomenon of nature has a perfectly reasonable and sensible solution.”

“You mean I treamed dot a man mit a pull’s-eye landern vos shining de lighd uff id in my faces?”

“Yes. Certainly. That is the true explanation. We both dreamed——”

But he stopped with a gurgling snort and tumbled back against the white rock.

“Brofessor, vot——”

Then Henselman uttered a cry, like the squeal of a stuck pig, and also tumbled back against the rock. He put his hand up to his face.

“Yiminy Gristmas! I am treaming again, ven I am avake unt my eyes iss vide open. I am treaming dot de sunshine iss hidding my face in. Yaw!”

A spot of brilliant white light flickered and wavered over his hand-covered face, flitted as a white dot on the white rock, and then smote the professor once more, causing him to howl again and fall back.

Professor Felix Bounderby rolled to one side to get away from that blinding spot of light, and Fritz Henselman 128rolled in the opposite direction. Both stared at it, as it flickered on the rock. Then it was gone.

“I am treaming, brofessor, dot de sunshine is hidding de rock, also, it iss hidding my face in! Unt id vas hidding you, too, alretty. Vat iss? I am treaming it mit my eyes vide open!”

“This is singular! This is very singular!”

Professor Felix Bounderby uncoiled his long frame and got on his feet, as he made this admission. He stared at the sky and saw that the sun was not in a position to throw spots of light on the rock at that point.

“This is a natural phenomenon which I must investigate, Henselman,” he said. “I must add it to the notes for that lecture on ‘Peculiar Life in a Wild Region.’ The sun throws spots of light on the face of a white rock, when, according to all the known laws of light, it is not able to do so. This is worthy of special investigation.”

He took out his eyeglasses, hooked them over his nose, and stared hard at the rock where he had seen the moving light spots. Nothing of the kind showed there now.

The German had risen, or, rather, had rolled, to his feet, and he, too, was inspecting the white face of rock.

“By yiminy, id puzzle me alretty!” he admitted. “Maybe dis rock is vat you call dransparent, so dot de lighd uff de sun can shood t’rough id. Nein?”

“Impossible, Henselman. We are here in the presence of one of nature’s great mysteries. If we can 129elucidate it, fame may be ours. I shall add the discovery to those notes on my lecture on——”

He stopped. Buffalo Bill was coming up briskly, and the professor became aware of the fact.

“Welcome!” he said. “Mr. Cody, we have here a strange thing. Though the sun is behind this rock, yet white spots of light from it strike with a dancing effect on this side of the rock. I have wondered if there can be extra brilliant points of light in the sun, the opposite of sun spots in effect, which would produce anything like that? There would need to be some reflecting surface, however, and——”

The dancing spots came again, flickering in a queer and irregular way over the rock.

The scout saw them for the first time. He watched them, as they flashed and flickered for nearly a minute, then they were gone.

“Every phenomenon of nature has a perfectly natural solution, Cody, if it can be known,” said the amazed Bounderby.

“Very true, professor,” the scout answered. “In this instance, the explanation isn’t far to seek. Those are telegraphic spots of light from a heliographic instrument.”

They came again, and the scout stared at them. He was reading them:

“‘We are at the red bluff. Join us at once. She is still missing and we need you.’”

The spots disappeared.

Buffalo Bill repeated to Bounderby and Henselman what he had read.

130“Over in the hills, there, at a point where its mirrors catch the sunlight, is a heliograph instrument. By means of it a message was flashed on that white rock, the flashes representing in their duration the dots and dashes of the Morse telegraphic code. Fortunately, I learned the code, and have practiced it enough to be able to read those flashes.”

“Yaw! Dot iss a telegraph?”

“It is a sunlight telegraph. The light of the sun falls on its mirrors, and is then reflected, or thrown, to this spot.”

The flashes were reappearing, and again the scout studied them.

“The same message again,” he said.

“But who is sending that message?” said Bounderby, who was so puzzled he took off his tall hat and scratched his bald head.

“I don’t know,” the scout was forced to admit. “Perhaps they think they know us. They call for help. And they speak of a missing girl. It must be the girl whose tracks we followed, and who you thought had been carried off by an orang-utan.”

“This—is—remarkable!” said Bounderby. “Remarkable!”

“The sender of that message and his instrument must be in that direction!” said the scout. “The light could not well be flashed to this spot from any other direction. Over there must be the red bluff mentioned in the message. The way to clear up this mystery is to go there and find the sender of the message. Perhaps we will in that way get more speedily 131on the tracks of the girl and the wild creature that carried her away.”

“We supposed, Cody, that we were the only people in this forsaken country,” said Bounderby, still scratching his bald head. “It appears we were mistaken. That young lady must have belonged to the party which is trying to signal us. But why are they trying to signal us? It can’t be that they know us.”

“The way to find out is to go over there, and I’m ready to start at once.”

“Cody, we are with you! Henselman, get the hand bag. I am feeling a bit hungry, but we can eat something as we go on. Yes, Cody, this is important. The spots were not thrown directly from the sun, but by a heliograph! I must put that in the notes for my lecture. Cody, we are ready to start at once. This is certainly a remarkable adventure.”

They had not had breakfast, yet they set out, heading in what the scout was sure was the right course, Bounderby gnawing at some meat as they pressed on, and Henselman sweating and puffing under the weight of the hand bag, which was made heavy by many specimens of rocks and ores.

CHAPTER XVIII. THE PARTY WITH THE HELIOGRAPH.

A hard tramp through the hills over rough ground brought Buffalo Bill and his companions, after a time, in sight of a tall cliff of red sandstone, which had at one side a projecting shelf some distance above the earth.

Upon this shelf stood a youthful fellow, scarcely more than a boy in years, and by him was the heliograph. When he sighted Buffalo Bill’s party he leaped off the shelf and slid rapidly down the side of the cliff to the ground. In another minute he came running out from the foot of the cliff, and with him ran a young man dressed in semimilitary clothing.

“We saw your heliographic flashes on the side of the white rock off there, and I was fortunately able to read the message,” said Buffalo Bill, addressing them. “So we came at once.”

The scout discovered that these senders of the message had not meant it for him, but for some missing members of the heliographic party, who had become separated from them the day before.

These two—the youth and the young man—were young Tom Lawler, who had charge of the burro train, and Lieutenant Butler, second in command, of an expedition which had been recently sent out from Klamath to make railway surveys.

“We thought this was the section where we were to 133do our work,” said Butler, “but I confess that a week ago, when the hazy atmosphere began, we got lost. When we followed our compass we were led here; but this morning I found that our compass is utterly unreliable. It points east, instead of north. When the sun rose the compass was pointing right at it. I was wondering if some electrical storm on the sun could have affected it?”

Yet the thing that now most concerned Lieutenant Butler and young Tom Lawler was that the sister of Major Fernald, the commander of the expedition, was missing, and had been gone for many hours. She had set out for a little walk through the hills, and had not returned. They had hunted for her, and Major Fernald and all his men, with the exception of these two, were out searching for her now.

“We have a considerable party,” said Butler. “We have surveyors and chainmen and a hunter or two whose business it is to shoot game for us, and we have been out two weeks. We haven’t accomplished anything, except to get lost; and now, since the singular disappearance of Miss Fernald, the whole expedition is demoralized. When I flashed that message on that rock we saw you, but at the distance you were we thought you members of our party. It was a hit-and-miss chance, and couldn’t be done often, yet it worked this time.”

Buffalo Bill and his companions made explanations, so that soon both parties had all needed information. The scout told of the discovery of a girl’s tracks, and 134of the strange tracks following hers, and of what had been inferred.

“This is important,” said Butler. “Those tracks were no doubt made by Miss Fernald. She came in this general direction, you say, but you lost the tracks after they left the sand? We must search for them there again. I wish Major Fernald were here. He and his party have been gone all night, and I’ve no idea where they are. We shifted our position after their departure, and, though we left marks for them to follow, they may not even find their way back to them. What you say about the magnetic hill which has made the compasses useless, and worse, is interesting. Probably they don’t know about that yet. No doubt we are many miles from the spot where we supposed ourselves to be. Even you don’t know just where we are?”

Fritz Henselman had put down the heavy hand bag.

“Vat iss?” he said. “Vonce I seen a sugar barrel, mit flies yoost flying to id from efery tirection. Here id iss de same vay. Dot magnedic hill iss de sugar barrel, unt ve are de flies; it draw us, unt here ve iss. Uff id keep on drawing beobles, ve vill haf more as a rigimend uff men in dis blace peety qvick.”

Professor Bounderby had produced his notebook, and was making notes for his lecture.

“Every phenomenon has a perfectly natural and reasonable cause,” he said, as he scribbled away, speaking as if to his notebook. “We have seen why our compasses acted, so queerly, and why flashes of light hit that white rock in so strange a way. If we continue, 135we shall discover how it happens that an orang-utan is here in Mexico, and why it chose to capture the young lady. I will just set down here that her name is Miss Fernald, that she is the sister of the commander of this surveying party, which came to make surveys for a railroad, and that she is a young lady whose love of adventure led her to accompany her brother in this expedition. Now she is lost, perhaps in great danger, maybe even dead; and we are to learn as soon as possible the facts.”

He read over what he had written, tucked away the pencil, and dropped the book into his pocket.

“Cody,” he said, taking the eyeglasses from his nose, “my servant and I are at your disposal. We came to make geological researches, but human nature and human needs are more interesting and important than cold stone; hence we stand ready to help you to the extent of our ability.”

The lieutenant and his companion scrambled up to the rocky shelf and brought down the heliograph and other things there.

“We have not a burro left,” said Butler. “When we came here we had a large burro train, and Mr. Lawler had charge of it. The burros were scattered a week ago in a violent night storm, and we couldn’t recover them. Since that time we have been wandering, led astray by our compasses.”

Buffalo Bill volunteered to guide Butler and Lawler to the sandy area where the tracks of the young woman had been found, for they were certain the footprints 136were those of Miss Emily Fernald, the sister of their commander.

Before departing from the red cliff, Lieutenant Butler wrote out a statement of what he had done and discovered, and what he now purposed to do, which he affixed to a stick thrust into a crevice in the cliff, where it could not fail to reach the eyes of Fernald’s party on their return.

Once more the attempt was to be made to find out what had become of the girl and her captor.

CHAPTER XIX. A STARTLING ATTACK.

Buffalo Bill and his companions camped that night at a distance even farther in the hills than before. They had made no discovery. The tracks of the girl and of the strange creature that had followed her could not be traced beyond the sandy area.

Yet so persistent had been the search that the night camp was made only after the light had failed, and the first satisfactory meal of the day was then eaten.

Major Fernald and his party had not been sighted, and their present location could not be guessed.

The distress of Lieutenant Butler and young Lawler was marked that evening; they had almost given up hope.

“It’s a terrible thing,” said Butler. “That a young woman of refinement and education, a woman of beauty and culture, should meet such a fate is something almost too horrible to think about. And she was as kind and good as she was beautiful. You would have said so, Cody, if you had known her.”

“I begin to believe that I do know her,” said Buffalo Bill, with a smile. “Unless I am greatly mistaken, she is the daughter of a ranchman, a girl whom I recently had the honor of rescuing from the clutches of Red Reynard. I am much interested in her fate.”

“This is going to kill her brother, the major.”

“I haven’t given up yet,” declared the scout. “I 138shall cling to hope until we know that we can’t hope any longer. We’ll begin the work again at daylight.”

Worn out by fatigue, Buffalo Bill slept rather soundly that night. But shortly before day he was awakened by a strange feeling of fear, which impressed him with a danger he could not combat or comprehend. He was shivering with dread as he opened his eyes. He almost cried aloud when he saw that he was looking straight up into another pair of eyes. The darkness was great, and his position was such that he could see nothing but the eyes, which looked down into his with a strange and fear-inspiring glare.

The scout was held by a horrible spell. A weight seemed to be pressing down on his chest. He struggled with the feeling, and, throwing it off partly, he tried to turn his body, and reached up to push aside the face that held those terrible eyes, even though he could not see the face.

When he did so he felt himself seized about the throat in so strong a grip that it seemed as if the muscles of his neck had been compressed suddenly by iron bands.

As those fingers, or claws, settled on his throat, his head was jammed backward against the earth. This, together with the quick choking, almost deprived him of his senses. Then he felt himself jerked to one side, and dragged over the ground. It was like a horrible nightmare, and he felt that he must be dreaming. Yet he knew better.

Struggling fiercely to throw off that awful clutch, 139which seemed to be crushing his neck, the scout succeeded in drawing his knife.

With a swing he plunged the blade into the side of the thing that held him. That swinging stroke was followed by a sound of some kind. There was a blow in the scout’s face, and his head fell backward.

When he returned to consciousness, after having lain without sense or motion for many minutes, darkness and silence were around and over him. He put his hand to his throat, which ached with a heavy, dull pain. His lungs were choked and wheezing, his head throbbed, and his eyes felt as if they were about to jump out of their sockets. Worse than all was that horrible fear, still chilling him and seeming to stop the very current of life in his body. Yet he knew he was alone, that the creature, whatever it was, had gone.

Then he heard a voice. It sounded far off at first, but a moment later it seemed quite near. He recognized it as the voice of Lieutenant Butler, and he knew then that Butler and the others were hunting for him.

The great scout lifted himself on his elbow and looked around in the gloom. He saw no one.

“Here!” he called, and to his ears his voice sounded husky and strange.

They came running to him—Lieutenant Butler, Tom Lawler, Professor Bounderby, and Fritz Henselman.

“What has happened to you?” said Butler, when he reached the scout. “Lawler heard something, and he thought he saw you being dragged away. Then 140we knew you were gone, and we aroused the camp, and ever since have been looking for you.”

“How long ago was that?” Buffalo Bill asked.

“Fully ten minutes.”

“What did you see dragging me, Lawler?”

“I don’t know, I couldn’t make out. I shouldn’t have known it was you but for a groan that I thought you made, and then we found you were not in the camp, and knew it was you. But what attacked you I don’t know.”

“Yet you really saw me dragged out of the camp?”

“Yes.”

Cody tried to sit up, and then to stand.

“If you will help me, Lieutenant Butler, I’ll try to get back to the camp. As soon as daylight comes I hope to find the tracks of the thing that attacked me.”

Butler and Lawler gave him aid in getting to the camp, while Professor Bounderby and the German made a pretense of watching for the return of the “thing,” whatever it was.

“Tell us just how it looked,” said Bounderby, when the scout was in the camp and in some condition for talking.

“I don’t know, I saw only its eyes. I had the most singular feeling of fear I ever experienced. I think it must have been the kind of fear a superstitious man has when he thinks he is in the presence of a ghost. Only this was no ghost, its grip was altogether too solid and material. Its fingers fairly cracked my neck. When I roused up, the thing was looking straight down 141into my eyes, and all I could see were those terrible eyes staring into mine. I wanted to yell. In my opinion, professor, we have found the thing that carried off Miss Fernald, or, rather, it found me. Perhaps it meant to carry me away, and failed. I’m sure I struck it with my knife, and perhaps that saved me.”

“The orang-utan is a strange beast,” said Bounderby, with oracular certainty. “You spoke of its fingers. That is permissible, for an orang-utan, you know, is a four-handed animal. When we say it walked upright on its hind feet, we really mean it walked on its hind hands.”

He produced his notebook and began to scribble in it.

“If you could describe just the sound it made after you struck it with your knife, at the moment it released you, I can make a note of it here, and use it in my lecture.”

“If that thing captured Miss Fernald, she is dead!” declared Butler, with much feeling.

The German had sat through all the talk, quiet, yet quaking.

“Uff id capture us ve iss all dead!” he declared now. “De young voman iss gone—kilt. Vy should ve stay here and be kilt alretty, too? I ton’d vish to investigation any pizness like dot. Brofessor, I t’ink ve petter pull ower freighd oudt uff dis blace vhen de daylight come, unt I hobe id vill come qvick.”

There was no more sleep for any of the party that night. They sat in the darkness, with loaded weapons, 142watching for the return of the thing that had attacked the scout, and they beheld it at various times, in various forms, by the aid of their excited imaginations, sneaking across the rocks toward them.

Yet it did not return.

CHAPTER XX. ANOTHER SURPRISE.

When morning came Buffalo Bill began a search of the camp and of the ground over which he had been dragged in the darkness.

At the point where he had thrust the knife into the creature he found marks of blood on the rocks. His knife had gone home, and it was that which had caused the thing to drop him.

Farther on the scout saw pebbles displaced and turned, though the hardness of the ground kept tracks from showing. He at once informed his companions of the nature of his discovery.

Bounderby and Lieutenant Butler joined him, and the others came soon.

Pursuing the general course shown by the displaced pebbles, they shortly gained a softer spot, and in the soil there they beheld again footprints, like those seen the previous day in the sandy area.

The scout looked at them closely, and pointed them out.

“There is proof that the thing which attacked me last night is the thing which carried off the young lady. We are on the right trail.”

Apparently the scout had recovered from the effects of that assault in the night, yet there were dark lines on his throat, and he had not been able to shake off entirely that strange and, for him, unnatural feeling 144of fear and horror. Fear in its ordinary sense was a thing unknown to Buffalo Bill. Yet he almost quaked when he remembered how those strange eyes had looked down into his in the darkness.

“I have encountered many terrible things,” he said, “but nothing ever before like that. Yet I don’t know what form the creature bore, whether it was like an ape or a man. All I can recall are those terrible, fiery, haunting eyes.”

“The eyes of an orang-utan,” said Professor Bounderby sonorously, “would glow in the darkness like those of an animal, if seen at the right angle. You didn’t notice a greenish glare, I suppose?”

“No, the eyes seemed fiery and staring, as near as I can describe it. They held me spellbound with horror.”

“It is awful to think of Miss Fernald having fallen into the power of such a creature,” said Butler. “We’ll believe that she fainted at sight of the thing, and that if it slew her, the deed was done before she recovered consciousness.”

He looked around with a shudder, as if he feared to behold the horrid shape pictured by his imagination.

Buffalo Bill led the way now, with cocked revolver. The tracks of the monster appeared so fresh that he half expected to come upon it at any moment. At his side strode Lieutenant Butler and Tom Lawler, carrying the necessary parts of the heliograph.

The tracks led by a roundabout course which finally drew the pursuers under some high, natural rock walls, that were set on a sort of plateau.

145From the base of these walls the country which had been passed over was visible. The white rock, resembling at a distance the wall of a tent, and the more distant cone-shaped hill that had played such tricks with the compasses, could be clearly seen.

When Buffalo Bill led the pursuers up to the natural rock walls, he saw the ground there was not favorable for trailing, and that again the tracks of the “beast” had disappeared. He pointed out the last track to be seen.

“The orang-utan was moving along the wall,” said Bounderby. “That track looks very fresh, Cody.”

“I should say it was made last night, or early this morning.”

Butler stared along the wall, and ran his eyes here and there, searching vainly for other tracks.

Fritz Henselman, who had been groaning under the weight of the heavily laden hand bag, took this opportunity to set it down. He had kept well behind. That seemed a safer place, and it was a thing his position as a servant enabled him to do without question.

“Brofessor,” he said, panting heavily, “I voult yoost as soon stay here mit de hant pag as to go furder on. Yaw! Vot iss de use? My arms iss pulled off alretty yet. I dinks I stay here mit de hant pag. You vill oxcoose me for nod going any furder along. I am nod afraid uff dot peast, or vatefer it iss. Ton’d dink id! I am yoost tired oudt by too much trafeling Yaw!”

Buffalo Bill smiled, in spite of the weight of uneasiness that burdened his mind.

146“But, Henselman,” he said, “if we go on and leave you here, that beast may come on you from the other direction while we are gone; and then what would you do? We don’t know which way it went, and so we can’t tell which way it may come back.”

Henselman jumped to his feet.

“Iss dot so?” he cried, and he picked up the hand bag, apparently forgetting that it was not light in weight, and was ready to move on again. “Uff id vasn’t for dose magnedic needles vich haf peen magnetized py dose magnedic moundains, ve coult fint our vay oudt uff dis place!” he groaned. “Brofessor, I dink now dot de sun iss shining maype ve coult find vich vay ve vish to go. Nein? I am voding dot ve try id. I haf lost not any apes and monkeys vot I shoult pe hunding. Unt dose vimmins is dead long ago. Brofessor, shall ve nod try to fint our vay oudt by der light uff der sunshine?”

“Henselman, I’m ashamed of this show of cowardice!” declared Bounderby, putting on his eyeglasses to give severity to the look he cast on his German servant. “We are engaged in an errand of mercy—the rescue of a young lady from the jaws and arms of a monster, an orang-utan; and shall we here hesitate? Perish the thought! Henselman, we remain with this party, let the result be what it may!”

But even the professor, though his words were brave enough, was shaking a little, as he considered the result of a possible encounter with the thing he had denominated an orang-utan.

Buffalo Bill was moving on, looking for the vanished 147tracks. A hundred yards beyond he found them again, showing that he had been taking the right course.

As he saw them thus once more, he stared. The tracks entered into a queer-looking place in the rocks, which seemed to have been hewn out, for it was oblong and formed on mathematical lines. Within it was a framework of wood.

“What have we here?” said the scout to Butler, who was at the moment by his side.

“It looks like a primitive sort of elevator,” said Butler.

And, indeed, that was just what it did look like. The hewn-out place in the cliff, together with the wooden framework it contained, resembled an elevator in a marked degree.

“Hello!” the scout added. “What more have we here?” Pressing farther in, his eye had been caught by a stone image. “An Indian idol!” he exclaimed, in astonishment. “Perhaps this is some old Indian chapel.”

Lawler was now at his side, peering in, his youthful features working with excitement and curiosity.

The scout struck a match, and held it up so that it lighted the rather gloomy interior of the “elevator” and fell on the stone image.

The image was apparently an idol, in a recumbent position, with an arm extended and finger pointing. The chisel work on the face was crudely done, yet the Indian features were recognizable.

148Bounderby came crowding after Lawler, drawn by the words he had heard.

“A find?” he said.

“A queer one, professor,” said the scout. “Take a look! This seems to be an Indian chapel, and there is the idol. What is it pointing to?”

He held the light down in the corner toward which the finger pointed, and saw there a wooden peg set into a hole.

Bounderby had crowded in, and was staring, with his eyeglasses perched on his nose.

“Not too fast, Cody!” he objected. “I must make accurate notes of this.” He whipped out his notebook. “Here we have what is probably a chapel of the ancient Aztecs, with one of the idols that race worshiped. It is a singular discovery.”

“Did that beast come into this place?” said Lieutenant Butler. “If he did, he went out again, because he could go no farther. This is interesting, but we are wasting time here. His tracks are so fresh out there that if we hasten we may come on him soon. So we oughtn’t to tarry here.”

Henselman came in and dropped his hand bag to the floor with a thud.

“Brofessor,” he said, and his tone had an appeal in it, “I opserve dot de sun is clouding ofer again, so dot py unt py maype de sky vill pe yoost like it vas yistertay. Den ve can’t fint ower vay oudt uff dis blace. I dinks me ve had petter dry id righd now, insteat uff vaiting. Vot you dink?”

“This idol sits in a recumbent position,” Bounderby 149was saying aloud, jotting down the words in his notebook, “and it has a finger pointed toward the corner of this singular room. Possibly that may indicate something.”

Buffalo Bill was stooping again, with a lighted match, to look at the wooden plug in the corner, to which that stone finger appeared to point. It seemed set tightly in a hole in the stone, but when he pulled on it, the wooden plug came easily away.

At the same time a startling thing occurred. The wooden framework in which they stood began to sink downward into the rock, dropping as if into a well. The thing that had seemed an elevator was an elevator.

This sudden drop downward into that well-like space was too startling almost for belief. It seemed to the scout a part of what had appeared to him in the night as a dream—a part of that impression of fiery eyes and darkness and clutching fingers.

Bounderby uttered an exclamation of dismay and astonishment, and Henselman flopped down with a grunt of terrified helplessness.

“Mein Gott in himmel!” he cried. “Vat iss? Brofessor, ve iss all dead men!”

Nor were the other members of the party less astounded than Bounderby and the German.

After a quick descent the rickety car stopped with a thump that almost shook Buffalo Bill from his feet.

Henselman emitted another squawk of fear.

CHAPTER XXI. FURTHER SURPRISES.

As the elevator thus came to a standstill the scout and those with him dimly saw in the gloom an open door.

As explained, the elevator was nothing but a framework of decaying wood, hence it was plain that this door was in the wall of the elevator well.

Buffalo Bill, unhesitating, struck another match, while his companions were variously expressing their astonishment. Its light showed that the door opened into a small, square room, which, except for that light, was perfectly dark. The only door it had was the one entering from the elevator.

Not without some hesitation did the scout step forth into this room. As the light of the match flamed higher he beheld a sight which called another exclamation from his lips.

An Indian sat in a crouched attitude in a corner.

Lawler saw the Indian at the same instant, and Buffalo Bill heard the clicking of the boy’s revolver.

“Don’t shoot!” was the scout’s warning, and he thrust the match down toward the Indian. “He is dead!”

The match went out, and it was necessary to ignite another before further examinations could be made.

Then they discovered that the Indian was not only dead, but that he was, in fact, a mummy, but so well 151preserved that he was not like the dried-up specimens of Indian mummies usually seen. He had the appearance of an Indian who had been not long dead.

In his mouth, projecting from between his teeth, he held a queer-looking flat stone. The scout flashed upon it the fight of the match, and saw that the stone held written characters, or what appeared to be written characters.

“See here, professor!” he said, and Bounderby came forward, trying hard to suppress any manifestation of his really great excitement. “There is something written on this stone, professor; it seems to be a message, or a letter, or, perhaps, instructions. I should guess instructions. But it’s in a writing I never saw before.”

Professor Bounderby gravely produced his eyeglasses, strung them across his nose, and bent to look at the flat stone projecting from between the lips of the mummy.

“It’s only visible in part,” he urged. “I——”

The scout took hold of the stone, and it came away easily. It was flat and round and covered on both sides with what seemed to be figures, or writing in hieroglyphics.

“Can you make it out, professor? It’s beyond me, I confess.”

All stared at Bounderby, and at the stone which the scout placed in his hands.

“It’s Aztec,” Bounderby declared, when he had looked it over. The professor was guessing, for he really did not know what it was; but as his scholarly 152ability seemed to be at stake, he said “Aztec.” Perhaps he was correct.

“It’s certainly Aztec, Cody, Aztec picture-writing; but I can’t read it.”

Butler and Lawler were looking around.

“That image above, you know, pointed to a wooden plug, and that showed us how to make the elevator descend. There’s another plug like it over there—somewhat like it, anyhow.”

It was Butler who spoke. He gave this wooden pin a pull, as the scout had done the other, with a result as startling. With a jerk and a wheezing grind, the elevator began to ascend.

Fritz Henselman, who had lingered in the doorway, gave a squeal of fright, and came plunging into the room, with a jump such as a bullfrog might have made; he had come near getting squeezed by the elevator, as it shot up past the doorway.

The match that had been flaming in the scout’s fingers went out, plunging the room into darkness. All stood in silence, hearing that grinding roar as the elevator ascended. They heard, also, the chugging sound it made as it stopped. The silence that followed was oppressive.

It was broken by Henselman.

“Brofessor, ve are all dead alretty yet! Der elefator has lefd us! Vot shall ve do?”

The elevator had left them, they were inclosed in that small room, with their only apparent avenue of escape the elevator well.

153Lieutenant Butler struck a match with hands that trembled.

“That was my fault,” he said. “I was too confident—too positive. I thought if I pulled that plug we might descend again here; in other words, I foolishly thought this room was also an elevator. Instead of that, the elevator which brought us here was sent back by my act.”

The scout likewise struck a match, and Lawler did the same.

With these matches burning, the room was plainly revealed. The door opened into the elevator well, but when this was inspected it was seen how impossible it was to climb out of it without ropes. The elevator worked up and down in a rough wooden frame, but this frame could not be ascended. Apparently the party was immured in that room of stone under the ground.

“Some one may use the elevator and come down here,” suggested young Lawler. “If that should happen, we’d make him take us out of this.”

Lieutenant Butler continued to inspect the well of the elevator, still hoping it could be ascended, while Buffalo Bill was looking around the room in which they were imprisoned. Bounderby was beginning to show the terror he had so long and successfully concealed. His face was white and drawn, and his form trembled. As for Fritz Henselman, he had never made any pretense of bravery, and had now given way to a great fright.

154“Brofessor, ve iss all dead men!” he continued to declare, with much monotony.

Professor Bounderby began again to study the stone taken from the mouth of the mummy. He was hoping to guess from the looks of the characters on it what it said; for he, as well as the scout, was convinced that the stone held the secret.

Staring at the stone, and then at the dark face of the mummy, the professor, perhaps to bolster up his courage, and certainly to make the others think him courageous, began to apostrophize the mummy.

“Thou lump of human clay, lifeless these hundreds of years, tell us the meaning of this! What secret dost thou hold in that heart of dust? What words of life and freedom are concealed behind those cracking lips? Out with it! Spell us the message on this page of stone!”

Buffalo Bill had made a round of the small room, without the discovery of anything that gave hope. There was no other wooden pin, no suggestive projection, nothing that hinted of a way out.

“Yield up thy secret!” the professor adjured the stony-faced mummy.

“Perhaps there is something hidden in the rags of raiment which clothe him,” the scout ventured.

There was a tattered blanket of Indian weave, some coarse-fibered mummy-cloth, together with a sort of cape of matting laid over the mummy’s shoulders.

Buffalo Bill stooped to lift this matting, and, in doing so, unintentionally drew the mummy toward 155him. It pitched forward on its face, and behind it was a hole.

It will be recalled that it sat in a crouching attitude in a corner of the room. In that corner was a niche which it had filled, and that niche, or hole, was undoubtedly a door.

Bounderby’s mouth dropped open, so great was his astonishment. He was for the moment so surprised that he had not a word he could say; which was remarkable, as he usually had altogether too many words for every occasion. The scout uttered an exclamation of amazement.

“What is it?” cried Lawler and Lieutenant Butler in a breath.

“A way out!” said the scout, his voice shaking with the tremendous significance of his discovery.

Both Lawler and Butler rushed to see, and stared into that black hole.

The scout pitched his flaming match down into it. He thought he was to be forced to regret this, for a flame shot upward, and this flame licked into the little room, which began to fill with smoke. But the flame began to die down almost at once. Then the excited discoverers found that the match had fallen upon some mummy-cloth, which had dropped from the back of the mummy into the open space that lay behind that little nichelike door.

“There is a good draft here,” said the scout, as he watched the smoke. “And that proves one thing. Air comes through that little hole, feeding the fire, and goes up the elevator shaft, as up a chimney. That 156shows there is a way out, or, at least, a way for the air to get in.”

Henselman staggered to his feet.

“Dere iss a vay oudt?” he screeched.

“I think so; we’re hoping so.”

Henselman pushed the scout aside, and poked his head into the small hole. But the fire flamed up again, scorching his face and hair, and he tumbled back.

CHAPTER XXII. MORE DISCOVERIES.

Buffalo Bill stooped and looked down into the hole, as soon as the fire had ceased and the smoke no longer rose in a way to suffocate him. He struck another match, which he held in his hand instead of tossing it down. Its light showed a narrow, cramped gallery leading off into the darkness. He announced his discovery to those behind him.

“Of course,” said Bounderby, in his superior tone, “an elevator descending can be expected to descend to a place where the passengers can get out. Strange we did not think of that before!”

“We thought of it, professor,” Butler corrected, “but we couldn’t find that way out. But here it is, Cody has found it.”

Henselman came to his feet again. “Brofessor, de hant pag iss gone!” he announced, with a wail.

“It was in your charge, Henselman! What has become of it?”

“Der elefator took id. Ven der elefator went oop de hant pag also id went oop. Yaw! Vat iss?”

Butler and Lawler, not heeding this, were crowding in back of Buffalo Bill, trying to look into the tunnel he had discovered. Professor Bounderby took off his hat and scratched his bald head in a puzzled way.

“Henselman, when we get back to civilization, I shall discharge you for this bit of carelessness!” he 158announced with severity. “That hand bag contains the ore specimens I have labored so hard to get, it represents the work of nearly three weeks of dangerous toil. And now it is gone!”

“Yaw! Id iss gone!” The rotund German waddled to the elevator well and looked up. “But, brofessor,” he said, and his voice changed as the thought came to him, “uff you hat peen combelled to carry dose hant pag like me, you voult rechoice dot id is gone alretty yet. Nein?”

The excited talk of Buffalo Bill and those with him made the professor forget for the time the loss of that precious hand bag. He turned to them.

“Have you found a way out?” he asked.

“We have found a narrow tunnel, Bounderby, and we’re hoping it will lead us out. It runs straight through this clayey cliff, and it’s narrow; but perhaps we can squeeze through.”

“We’ve got to squeeze through!” said Lieutenant Butler.

“Follow me!” the scout ordered, and he tore from the mummy some of its cloth, twisted it into a torch, which he lighted, and then, slipping into the hole, he began to crawl along, lighting the way with that gruesome torch, whose flame filled the narrow space with smoke, and soon set all to coughing.

After him came Lieutenant Butler, and then Lawler, and, following behind, the professor and the German.

The tunnel proved a “Fat Man’s Misery” for Henselman. He was soon in trouble and squealing for aid.

159“Hellup!” he bellowed. “Brofessor, ton’d leafe me here. I am shtuck!”

“But I can’t turn around to assist you, Henselman!” the professor declared testily. “My body and legs are too long; I can’t turn in this place. Henselman, you’ll have to help yourself!”

The yells of the German caused Buffalo Bill and those on ahead to stop.

“Don’t send out such howls as that, Henselman!” the scout protested. “You’ll have us in trouble.”

“Id iss me dot iss alretty in trouple,” said Henselman. “I am shtuck in dis hole. I am too fad in my stummick!”

“Henselman, squeeze along; you can make it!” the professor urged; and seeing how difficult it was for him to get help, the fat German began to “squeeze along,” and, with much grunting and sighing, contrived to advance a little.

When the scout had gone on for twenty or thirty yards he saw a faint light. He announced the discovery to Lieutenant Butler, who was next behind him. Then he blew out the smoking and cough-producing torch, being glad to get rid of it.

“We don’t know what we’ll find out there,” he explained, “and we wouldn’t wish our light to be seen. Bounderby, tell that German to cease his noise. We don’t know what we’re coming to now. But there is light ahead.”

The knowledge that light had been seen, indicating that the end of the tunnel was being reached, had an inspiring effect on Henselman. He got along much 160better after that, and with much less puffing and panting.

“Ve vill neffer pe aple to gid back der vay we haf comed from, brofessor,” he declared.

“Perhaps, Henselman, we shall not want to. The only reasons I can think of that would make me want to go back are that hand bag and the hope of being able to understand a bit more about the mysteries we have beheld. That stone taken from the mouth of the mummy, Henselman, I have here in my pocket. I hope to be able to read it some time. When I deliver my lecture——”

But Henselman was howling again, declaring that he was stuck fast; and what more the professor said was not heard by the others.

The light seen by Buffalo Bill increased. He saw that he was nearing the end of the tunnel, and that the light was sunshine coming in there.

But, unfortunately for Henselman, the tunnel contracted still more as it neared the end, and soon the rotund stomach of the German was having further and continued trouble.

When the scout gained the end, he ventured to peer out, before venturing out himself. What he saw was as surprising as anything that had gone before.

A circular valley lay spread beneath him, a valley of great beauty, embowered here and there in trees, and having in its center a large village, which was dominated by a shining, domelike structure.

Where there are houses people may be expected. In this case they would supposedly be Indians, and, therefore, 161enemies. Thus thinking, the scout took a good look, to make sure that no Indians were near the mouth of the tunnel. Then he spoke to Lieutenant Butler.

“We’re at the end,” he said. “There’s a valley here, with an Indian village in it; at least I think it is an Indian village, though it has a templelike structure that looks anything but Indian. Can you squeeze in by me here and take a look at it? I fear to try to get out yet.”

Lieutenant Butler crowded in by the side of the scout, and their bodies so filled the narrow space that the situation was almost uncomfortable. But what Butler saw repaid him for the pain and effort.

“It is amazing!” he said. “I can hardly believe my eyes.”

“An Indian village?” said the scout.

“I can hardly think so; Indians are not given to fine architecture, and if that central house isn’t fine architecture I miss my guess. See that high dome in its middle, Cody! That must be a temple, and Indians are not supposed to have temples.”

“Some kinds of Indians have temples, or once had, and those were the Aztecs. You recall that stone in the mouth of the mummy? The writing, or whatever was scratched on that stone, resembled Aztec characters, as I recall them. Can this be an Aztec city?”

“But the old Aztecs are all dead, Cody.”

“Very true. So far as we know, they are all dead, and their descendants are the miserable Indians and peon class of the Mexico we know to-day. But there may be some remaining. Remember that we don’t 162know where we are. We suppose we’re in Mexico, yet we don’t even know that. Following our compasses, which had gone crazy, we were led we know not whither, and we have no correct idea of our location. There are strange Indian tribes in the interior of Mexico, in some of the inaccessible mountains, for instance. Lieutenant Butler, we can’t be sure that this is not an Aztec city.”

Professor Bounderby heard a portion of that, and he tried to squeeze to the front, with the result that he and young Lawler were crowded into space so small that soon Bounderby began to feel as pinched and squeezed in as the German, who was still snorting his calls for help.

“We’ll have to risk it,” said the scout to Lieutenant Butler, after a further look round. “So, here goes!”

He crawled with difficulty through the opening, which had pinched in until the hole was no larger than his body, and seemed hardly so large.

When outside, the scout was gratified to see a screen of bushes. It was some distance off, by the side of what looked to be a highway. Yet it pleased him to discover that when he had slipped away from the mouth of the tunnel this bushy screen interposed between him and the houses of the village. He drew over to that side, and Lieutenant Butler, coming after him, did the same.

Then Tom Lawler came crawling forth, his fine young face shining and red, his eyes staring about with interest and eager curiosity.

“I wonder where are we now?” he asked.

163“I’m sure I don’t know,” said Butler. “Perhaps Bounderby can tell us.”

Bounderby’s head appeared, then his narrow shoulders and long body and legs came into view. Behind Bounderby the German was laboriously trying to make progress, as his sighs, groans, and exclamations showed. Bounderby sat up, straightened his tall hat in place, and flourished a soiled handkerchief, which he drew out to wipe his heated and now grimy face.

“This is—remarkable!” he declared, when he caught sight of the shining building and the rows of white houses, the houses at that distance, many of them, resembling cubes of snow, or salt.

“Re-mark-able!” repeated the professor.

The familiar notebook and familiar pencil came out, and he began to scribble with furious haste:

“Having crawled for a long distance through a small tunnel, we found ourselves in the outer air again, and before us we beheld a shining edifice which glittered in the sun as if it were of gold; and beside it, running by streets and in squares like the houses and business blocks of a city, were many small houses. Most of the small houses were white, though some, at this distance, had a general dull-mud color. We could scarcely believe we had not entered some sort of fairyland.”

As the professor had the singular habit of reading aloud whatever he jotted down, and while he was jotting it down, this was heard by Buffalo Bill, and by Lawler and Lieutenant Butler.

“A very good description,” said the scout. “Can you tell us what you think of it, professor? What sort 164of a city is that? Is it a large Indian village? And what do you make of that large house in the center? It seems to be nearly circular, and has a very high dome.”

“That is a temple,” declared the professor, with much certainty.

“But Indians, unless they are Aztecs, or of some like tribe, do not build temples!”

“These may not be Indians, Cody. That is certainly, to judge from its appearance, a temple, and its roof seems to be of beaten gold. The houses are poor enough, most of them, but that temple is magnificent. These people have put all their wealth into it, and have been content with the little houses for themselves. That shows they are a religious people.”

“What I’m thinking of,” said Tom Lawler, when the professor stopped, “is that strange beast which we followed. Did that thing get into the elevator and come down here through this tunnel?”

“I think it must have done so!” declared the professor.

“Then it pulled the peg which caused the elevator to descend, and when it got into that little room back there it toppled the old mummy forward and crawled down into this tunnel. Is that your idea, professor?”

Bounderby hesitated to declare that this was so; he began to see where it would lead him.

“If it did all those things,” Lawler went on, when Bounderby did not reply, “then it was a man, and not a beast!”

165“But the orang-utan footprints!” the professor objected.

“We don’t know that it was an orang-utan, professor! None of us has seen it.”

“That is very true,” said Bounderby, with great gravity, “but it is to be remembered that it is not necessary to see a creature in order to know of its existence. For instance, we may hear it howl and so judge by the ear alone. We may discover its hiding place, and get our knowledge from what we see there. In the present case, we judge by the footprints which it left, and by its attack on Mr. Cody. Its tracks are those of an animal.”

“They are not like the tracks of a man, you mean,” the scout corrected.

“They are not like the tracks of a man, and the luminous glare of its eyes as it looked down at you indicated also that it is an animal.”

“I do not think I said the eyes were luminous, but only that they seemed fierce and fiery. It’s hard to get a word to describe them, or their effect on me. They might have been the eyes of a man.”

“There’s a sort of mist rising over in that direction,” said Lawler. “It’s beyond what looks to be a road. I wonder what causes it?”

“We’ll see,” said the scout. “I think there is a waterfall, or swift stream there.”

CHAPTER XXIII. AN AMAZING DISCLOSURE.

They crawled away from the hole that had given them entrance into the beautiful and mysterious valley, sheltering their movements from possible observers by the screen of the trees.

When they approached the trees they found a broad highway, which seemed to be much traveled. The trees were on each side of it, and made a shade.

Beyond the highway rose the thin mist mentioned by the boy, and as they came nearer to it they heard the sound of water. They found also that the tree-fringed highway skirted the edge of a high bluff, this bluff forming on that side the rim of the valley which held the village and the shining temple.

As they drew near this bluff and looked down over its upper rim, they beheld a fascinating sight.

The valley more than ever resembled a cup—a cup of emerald, with its rim represented by low, clifflike walls that ran almost wholly around it. The center of the valley was occupied by a sparkling lake, and the stream which they had heard, and which now they saw, flowed into this lake and apparently flowed out again on the opposite side. As strange as anything connected with the stream was that it seemed to issue from under the highway; in fact, they could fancy that they were directly over it at certain points in their journey thither.

167“I think that stream explains one thing that has puzzled me,” said Buffalo Bill.

“And what is that?” asked Bounderby.

“The elevator. I have wondered what ran it—where the power came from. It must come from that stream, which seems to flow under the rock walls at about the point where that elevator stands.”

“I see! Nevertheless, it was a remarkable piece of work for Indians. Yet not half so remarkable as the rearing of that temple.” He stared off at the shining dome of the building they called the temple. “Can it be possible, Cody, that the people who constructed that are Indians?”

“I think there is no doubt of it.”

“I wonder,” said Lieutenant Butler, “if Miss Fernald can be alive and down in that village?”

“I’m wondering if the beast that Professor Bounderby says is an orang-utan can be down there?” remarked Tom Lawler.

Buffalo Bill’s hand fell on the arm of Lieutenant Butler, to call his attention.

“Hark!”

All listened. Then the silence was broken by the shrill scream of fifelike instruments, with heavier, reedy notes, and the thump of drums.

The sounds came from the upper end of the valley, to which, until this moment, they had not given much attention. Lifting their heads and craning their necks, they soon saw the front of a strange procession come into view.

Just below the rim of the valley on which they 168rested, and between it and the waters of the lake, was another highway, even more beaten than the upper one, and it was on that highway the procession had appeared.

At the head of the procession were the fifers and drum-beaters and a group of fantastic figures that danced and leaped, waving their arms wildly, and now and then shouting singular cries.

“It is a religious procession of some sort,” said Bounderby.

Behind the musicians and dancers came other figures as fantastic, some carrying fluttering banners. And now a great chanting chorus rose on the air, which changed occasionally to a wailing song that had a peculiarly heartrending intonation.

“One would think they are mourning for the dead,” said the scout, when he heard it.

More and more Indians came into view, as the procession began to stretch out along the highway.

It was observed now that the end of this highway appeared to be at or near the glittering temple which had attracted so much attention. All around the temple and within its doors people were gathered.

Bounderby had his pencil and notebook out and was scribbling furiously. As usual, he spoke the words aloud as he set them down:

“Having penetrated to the hidden valley by the strange manner already recorded, and viewed the shining temple and the snow-white huts, we heard sounds of strange music, and beheld at the valley’s farther end a singular procession. It appeared on the road that 169led by the beautiful, tree-shaded lakelet which is in the center of the valley. Many of the villagers were grouped within and close by the great temple. Toward it the procession was moving, thus declaring to us that what we saw and heard concerned the temple and had a religious significance. It is well known that the ancient Aztecs were a highly religious people, and we concluded that we had here found a remnant of that ancient race, hidden in these distant hills, still untouched and uncontaminated by civilization, and practicing all their ancient rites and customs.”

He held the book and the pencil between his fingers and stared at the moving body of people, the head of which was now near the lake and almost in front of their post of observation.

“Cody,” he said, “this is really the most remarkable thing I ever met in all my varied experience! We are no doubt watching a religious ceremonial of the ancient Aztecs, and if we could but penetrate to that temple and see the people there after this procession has reached it, I have no doubt we should behold things so strange that they would astonish us and the world. I wish it were possible to get there.”

“It would be at the sacrifice of our lives, if we tried it,” was the declaration of the experienced scout.

“No doubt it would, but one could almost be willing to die, to witness a scene such as that.”

A sort of fervor inspired the words of the professor. When the scout glanced at him he saw that Bounderby’s face was flushed to a deep red and that his eyes held a strange and far-away gaze of anxious 170desire. The professor was eccentric, loved the sound of his own voice, was quite boastful, and possessed an unwarranted opinion of himself, yet he was also learned in his way, and an honest delver after obscure and stray bits of knowledge lying along the lines of his specialty.

Again the scout, looking at the procession, touched the arm of Lieutenant Butler.

“Yes, I see!” said Butler, in answer.

A silken pavilion, partly inclosed, had come into view in the center of that long line of marching men, a pavilion borne on men’s shoulders, and so constructed that it was hoisted high over their heads and was in full view of all the people. As the pavilion was thus carried past certain groups that stood on the sides of the highway these latter lifted their voices in mighty shouting.

“Some conquering hero comes!” said Lieutenant Butler.

“I should say it is the high priest borne thus aloft,” said Professor Bounderby, whose interest and excitement were constantly growing. He snatched up his pencil and notebook and began again to set down what he saw.

“The chief priest, or the chief of the tribe, or the king,” said the scout, venturing a guess. “Hear the people shout as he passes them!”

The watchers were so eager to see all that they nearly forgot the danger they might be in, as they thrust up their heads and craned their necks, trying to get good views of everything. They had crawled forth 171to the very limit of the trees, so that they were close upon the edge of the cliff there, and at times, as they thus poked forth their heads, they might have been seen if any of the people below had chanced to look in that direction. But the excited inhabitants of the valley were too much interested in what they were themselves doing to give a thought, apparently, to anything else.

That silken pavilion continued to attract attention and comment. As it came nearer the watchers on the cliff were able to see that the one who occupied it was in a reclining position. When it swung around at a bend in the highway, giving a view of its open side, Buffalo Bill turned upon it his binoculars, which he had already been using, though to small purpose so far. An involuntary cry was drawn from his lips.

“What is it?” said Butler.

Without a word the binoculars were passed to the lieutenant. The scout’s face had suddenly paled. When Lieutenant Butler took a look through those powerful glasses he not only echoed the cry of the great scout, but he let the glasses fall out of his hands, so startled was he by what he beheld.

Young Lawler caught up the glasses and trained them on the pavilion.

“Great heavens!” he said. “It’s Miss Fernald!”

That was the sight beheld by Buffalo Bill and the lieutenant—Miss Emily Fernald, the missing girl, in that pavilion, in a reclining position, and with thick ropes upon her, showing that she was bound.

The knowledge that the girl whom they had been 172so long and laboriously seeking was in the pavilion thrilled the whole party.

“You say it is Miss Fernald. As soon as the glass revealed her I judged that.”

Professor Bounderby snatched the binoculars out of the hands of Tom Lawler and turned them on the young woman.

“This is—terrible, Cody—terrible!” he whispered. “She is a prisoner, without doubt—a helpless prisoner. Ah! now I understand the mystery of that procession, of that music, of that shouting; the girl is to be sacrificed in that temple, by those Indians!”

“We’ve got to rescue her!” said Tom Lawler, almost shouting the words. “We can’t permit that, you know!”

Lieutenant Butler seemed too dazed to speak for the moment. But finally he found his voice.

“What can we do, Cody?” he asked helplessly. “I don’t doubt she is to be sacrificed. But what can we do? I’m ready for anything, if a way of rescuing her can be found.”

“We are but a small handful,” said Bounderby, “and down there are hundreds of Indians, who are worked up to a great pitch of religious enthusiasm. If we should go down there we would but meet the fate that is to be the portion of the poor girl.”

“If we had a hundred men,” said Lieutenant Butler; “if we had but fifty, we could charge into their midst, and perhaps accomplish something. But, as it is!”

His face was pale as death, and his eyes, when he 173turned them helplessly on the scout, were seen to be bloodshot. His agony was piteous to see. He had known and admired Emily Fernald, and even some warmer feeling stirred in his heart of hearts. So that it was like death to him to see what he now witnessed.

“But what can we do?” he wailed.

“I don’t know just what we can do,” said Buffalo Bill, “but we’ve got to do something.”

“That’s right!” cried Tom Lawler, his face flaming. “We’ve got to do something.”

He clutched his revolver with a feverish grip, and the fire of recklessness burned in his fine face.

Yet, truly, they seemed powerless to do anything.

CHAPTER XXIV. UNSELFISH HEROISM.

Buffalo Bill’s heroic determination to save the girl from the terrible fate awaiting her took shape quickly in action. Indeed, if anything was to be done, it appeared that it must be done at once, for after she was in that temple there was no knowing how speedily the bloody purpose of these people would be accomplished.

“I am going down there!” was the scout’s simple declaration, when he had given a moment or two to inquiring of himself whether anything but the most direct method promised hope.

“We’ll go with you!” said Tom Lawler.

Lieutenant Butler was as ready and willing to go as young Lawler. But Professor Bounderby hesitated, and Fritz Henselman very promptly showed the white feather.

“Vat iss?” cried Henselman. “Uff dose Inchuns iss going to ead dot girl, vy shoult ve led dem ead us also unt likevise?”

“They are not going to eat her. Henselman!” corrected Bounderby.

“Nein? Vat iss?”

“We fear they are going to sacrifice her.”

“Dot iss nod eading, eh?”

“Certainly not, Henselman. They will slay her as an offering to their gods, that is all.”

175“Dot iss all? Dot iss enough, ain’d id? I voult yoost as soon pe cooked unt eaden as to be saccerivised. Ve petter sday righd here.”

“I—I think I should prefer to stay, myself,” Bounderby confessed. “We could remain here and watch this exit, to see that the Indians do not block it; so that our friends, if they succeed in effecting the rescue of the young lady, may have a way open to retreat.”

“Dis exid!” said Henselman. “Vat iss?”

“That hole back there is what I refer to, it is an exit.”

“Oh, dot! Yaw! Ve vill sday here und keep dot hole open. Uff an Inchun goes indo id I vill shood heem.”

He clawed at his revolver and waved it so nervously that Buffalo Bill asked him to put it down. The scout was making hurried preparations—seeing that his revolvers were loaded and that his cartridges were where he could get at them readily.

“I am willing to go alone,” he said, “and it may be better that I should. We haven’t force enough to fight those fellows, and one might accomplish as much as if all went.”

Lieutenant Butler looked at him earnestly.

“I see, Cody, that you rather expect to lose your life down there in a mad attempt to rescue that girl. It’s fine of you, but if you go, I go with you, for I am willing to die in an effort to save her.”

“Here, too!” cried Lawler. “Mr. Cody, we’ll back you in anything you try.”

“Ve petter all retread for de exid,” Henselman 176urged. “Vat iss? Uff ve are caughd here dis highway in, we shall all be kilt, eenyhow. Id is dancherous to be lifin’ so close by dis highway, vere beoples vat ve ton’d vant to see may be coming along at any minute.”

“You can retreat, Henselman, you and Bounderby, if you choose. And perhaps it’s as well if you do. You can get outside, and that will make you safe.”

“But dose magnedic needles are crazy made by dose magnedic moundains!” protested Henselman. “Nopody can travel py dem. Vot vill ve do? For de sky is clouding ofer again.”

Buffalo Bill had made his preparations. “Now I’m ready,” he said to Lieutenant Butler. “If you choose to go, lieutenant, I shall be glad to have you do so, but I shan’t blame you if you stay. The chances, I confess, are not good, but something must be tried. So, I am going.”

Butler rose to his feet, and so did young Lawler.

“We’ll go with you!” cried the latter, showing a courage undaunted.

“Fortunately,” said the scout, “the attention of those Indians is attracted to the procession and the temple; not one has even looked in this direction. We may be able to get to the temple without discovery, if we’re careful.”

He walked to the rim of the bluff and looked down, and the next moment, having clutched some bushes which grew there, he was sliding over. Butler and young Tom Lawler followed him.

When they reached lower ground, where bushes 177again screened them, they discovered that Professor Bounderby and Fritz Henselman were coming.

“Just slow up a minute,” called Bounderby. “I think I’d rather take the risks with you than to stay here. Henselman and I have just sighted a body of men coming along that highway, and the chances of being seen by them are good. So we’re going with you. I think those men are seeking the exit.”

Buffalo Bill and those with him stood in the bushes at the foot of the cliff, while Bounderby and Henselman slid down, the latter puffing and groaning.

“Py yiminy,” said Henselman, as he struck solid ground, “id is a lucky ding for me dot dose elefator carried avay dot hant pag; I ton’d had to carry it any longer! I pidy you vellers vot has to carry dot sunlight telegraph!”

“We haven’t been seen, I believe,” said Bounderby, taking courage.

Buffalo Bill was already moving on, followed by Butler and Lawler. Henselman and the professor came right after them now, seeming to feel safer by keeping close at their heels.

The scout hugged the cliff wall, where a screen of bushes grew, as he moved hastily in the direction of the temple. The head of the procession was close up to the shining building now.

The scout burrowed a way through the bushes with practiced ease, making at the same time a pathway for those who came after him.

The sounds of the shrill music and the wild shouting 178of the Indians drowned the noise made by the scout and his companions in their hurried passage.

At intervals Buffalo Bill and those with him looked out at the Indians. They saw the head of the procession reach and enter the temple, then, before they came opposite the building, they saw the silken pavilion approaching the great shining door. Fortunately for the scout’s purpose, the trees continued almost up to the temple itself on that side.

Rapidly as the scout moved, the fact that he could not go straight ahead hampered his progress, and he saw the pavilion carried through the golden door of the temple. His fears increased when he beheld that. He broke into a run, which took him so rapidly on that in a few minutes he was at the outer limits of the trees.

At panting pace his companions followed.

The scout looked out. He had a good view of the big door through which the pavilion had been carried. All around it Indians were grouped, most of them shouting. The fifing and the drum-beating rose in a very fury of sound, mingling with the shouting. The people were in a frenzy.

“There is just one chance,” said the scout, as he thus looked out. “I can make a run up to the door, and then fight my way into the temple. If anything is accomplished it will have to be done as a surprise. If I can reach the girl’s side perhaps I can get out of the temple with her. I shall expect you to remain in hiding here, ready to rush forth to my aid as soon as I appear with her.

179“If I do not come out, you will know that I have been killed or am a prisoner. After that you will have to make your own plans and govern yourself by them. Yet, if I fail, I think it will be useless for you to try to get into the temple, it will be wisdom for you to retreat as fast as you can, for my effort will have aroused the Indians.”

Cody drew a revolver and clicked the cylinder around to see that it was in working order. The fire of heroic resolution was in his face.

“We’ll go in with you, if you say!” said young Lawler. His chest was heaving from his quick run, and his eyes were glittering with excitement. He was a hero, too, youthful as he was.

Bounderby was trembling with excitement and fear, and Henselman seemed on the borders of a physical and mental collapse. The scout paid scant attention to them, however.

“Cody,” said Bounderby, “I have been trying to explain to myself how a young lady captured by an orang-utan happens to be here in the power of these Aztecs. But my logic fails me. My premises are either wrong, or——”

“Be ready for my reappearance in the temple door,” said the scout, speaking to Butler and Lawler. “I’m sure I shall need your aid, if I am fortunate enough to get that far with the young lady.”

So saying, he stepped boldly forth, for the bushes gave no further cover, and an instant later he was running with soft footsteps in the direction of the golden door of the temple.

180Not an Indian turned to look in his direction. All were staring at the door, beyond which apparently the common people were not permitted to go.

Within the doorway were a number of brilliantly dressed figures, whose feathered headdress and glittering armlets, together with the gold ornaments on their barbaric clothing, made them conspicuous. But even these were looking into the temple, and not out, so that they did not see the approach of the scout.

A thick fringe of Indians stood between the scout and the door. They were the spectators, in holiday attire, though in many cases their clothing consisted of little more than a wonderful application of paint and feathers.

Into this fringe the daring scout sprang like a football player going at a line of opposing players. He knocked over some of the Indians, whom he could not get around, sprang past the others, and the next moment was running toward the glittering door.

A wild bellowing yell broke from the lips of the Indians. Unheeding this, the daring scout gained the doorway with quick, springy leaps, and startled the brilliant figures there by dashing past them and going straight on into the building.

It was in many respects a gorgeous edifice, barbaric in splendor, which the scout had thus invaded. He saw that as soon as he had passed through the doorway. Its walls of stone and mud were painted and carved with strange scrolls and figures of men and animals, and its pillared interior was lighted from above by an opening that let in a flood of sunlight.

181At the side of the room the silken pavilion had been halted. The scout did not even look at it. It was empty. But his eyes fell on the figure of the girl he was risking his life to save. She had been laid, bound, on a sacrificial stone which no doubt had witnessed the death of thousands of victims. Around her were gathered the priests, some of them bearing the sacrificial knives. The girl’s face was pale as death, and her eyes were closed, that she might not see the knives that were ready to slay her. She had long before lost all hope.

Buffalo Bill knew as soon as he saw that bound figure on the sacrificial stone that he had been right in all his surmises concerning the purpose of the Indians. This was, he saw, really an Aztec temple. Strange as it seemed, these were Aztecs, worshiping according to their ancient custom, which demanded human sacrifices. He was to know later that this was the temple and the town of Zataclin, and that the priests and the people considered themselves a superior order of beings, far removed from the common Indians of Mexico, of whom, in truth, however, they had very little knowledge.

The cries of the painted and feathered men in the doorway attracted the attention of the priests gathered around the sacrificial stone. Something had happened to cause such an outcry, they knew. They turned, to behold the heroic scout.

Buffalo Bill caught up the form of the girl from the sacrificial stone and with defiant attitude faced the bloody priests of Zataclin.

CHAPTER XXV. A HEROIC EFFORT.

If Buffalo Bill had been given time, or had possessed the inclination, to take note of those priests, he would at least have been interested. Their faces were unnaturally red, with a coating of red paint, their clothing, such as they wore, glittered with gold ornaments, on their arms were shining gold armlets, and on their heads crowns of painted plumes.

The girl opened her eyes when she felt herself caught up from the sacrificial stone, and then, seeing that she was in the arms of a white man, she screamed.

Wild yells came from the doorway, which was filling with Indians, yet the priests fell back before the fiery, defiant eyes of the scout.

With the girl in his arms, he moved toward the door. The venture was so desperate that he did not know how it would terminate. To take stock of the chances against him was to court weakness.

“Stand back!” he said, speaking in English.

Though their knives were drawn, the startled priests fell back before him. They were muttering and crying out. The very daring of the thing was telling in his favor. They were shocked by the sacrilegiousness of this singular attempt to rescue from the sacrificial stone a being who had been devoted to the gods. No doubt they expected that the angry gods would strike down this intruder.

183Yet the thing which really was working most in the scout’s favor was that these priests had never seen a white man before, and, until her capture, they had never seen a white woman. They had heard of them, as half-mythical creatures, and there were in the village men who claimed to have seen them, and to have penetrated to a land where white men swarmed like ants. Yet these priests had never until this minute looked into the face of a white man. Hidden away in that cuplike valley, ringed in by mountains, far in an unknown land, they had remained Aztecs in everything, even as their forefathers were.

Buffalo Bill guessed something of this, when he saw the terror and wonder working in the faces of the priests.

“Stand back!” he shouted, for he trusted they would understand the tone, if not the words.

But when he tried to pass out through that shining door he was pressed upon by Indians who were determined to resist this, by Indians who were not willing to have the temple invaded and the victim taken from the stone of sacrifice and from under the very knives of the sacred priests.

Buffalo Bill whipped out his revolver.

The girl had fainted, fortunately, and lay as if dead in his arms.

“Stand back!” cried the scout, and he swung the revolver round.

But there was a rush, as those in front tried to seize him, while a very frenzy of clamorous sound arose.

184Then the scout’s revolver spoke, its report booming like thunder within those temple walls. The man who had sought to stop him uttered a cry of pain and bewilderment, and fell backward, his arm broken and dropping helpless at his side.

The effect of that revolver shot was unexpected even by the scout.

Wild cries of fright rose within the doorway and beyond it, where the packed Indians struggled now to gain the open air, and the men close by the scout, stunned apparently by the concussion of that revolver explosion, threw themselves face downward on the temple floor.

The way was open. At a bound the daring scout cleared it, reaching the outer steps of the temple. As he did this, the girl struggled in his arms, unconscious that she was hampering him.

The scout held her on his strong left arm, and clutched with his right hand his revolver.

Before him was a mass of Indians falling back out of his way. Behind him in the temple he heard voices wailing. Nearer at hand were those prostrate figures that had dropped to the temple floor when the revolver roared its defiant message.

The scout was looking beyond the crowd toward the trees where he expected to behold his friends in waiting, and was surprised that he did not see them there. He ran down the steps, for delays were dangerous, determined to fight his way through the compacted mass of Indians.

In this moment, when it seemed the path was hopelessly 185blocked, he recalled how a single soldier of Cortez, pitted against the Aztecs of his own day, had been equal to hundreds of them.

“Stand back!” he commanded again, as he passed down the temple steps.

The Indians near him tried to fall back, but those behind prevented them, and the result was a wild jumble and scramble of crowding Indians, that filled up every avenue of escape.

At this juncture, there was a wild American yell, the packed Indians in front of the scout were thrown apart, and through the opening thus made came Lieutenant Butler and Tom Lawler, with Bounderby and the German at their heels. It was something like a football wedge splitting open an opposing eleven.

The four white men had broken the line there by force of the surprise more than by the mere battering strength with which they had hit it. But the line closed instantly behind them and seemed to become more tightly packed than before.

They gained the side of the scout. Turning, with drawn revolvers, Lieutenant Butler and young Lawler placed themselves by him. Bounderby tried to line up with them, but Fritz Henselman made no such heroic effort. He had only come because he was afraid to stay, and he now ran behind Butler, and tried to crouch down. When he saw that Indians were coming from the other direction as well, his plight became pitiable.

The path of least resistance seemed to lie close along the temple wall now, and the scout and his daring comrades 186took it. But no sooner had they started along the wall than the Indians began to close in upon them, as if gaining courage.

“We shall have to fight our way through,” said Butler, flourishing his revolver. “Just give the word, Cody. We’ll have to down these fellows.”

“Fire a shot now and then, but do not shoot anybody unless you have to, and then shoot only to wound,” were the scout’s instructions. “We don’t want to enrage them. What we want to try to do is to scare them.”

He shot a bullet into the ground at his feet, and as it tore up the earth and the sound broke on their ears, the Indians fell back before him as if in amazement.

Seeing the effect, Lawler and Lieutenant Butler began to imitate him, with the same effect.

The Indians fell back, yet they did not vanish; they merely kept two or three yards away, as if they feared more than anything else the powder smoke and the earth that flew about when the bullets struck the ground.

“We’ll have to fight our way through,” said Lieutenant Butler, and Buffalo Bill was beginning to think this offered the only hope.

Then the unexpected happened.

A bag resembling a huge fishing seine dropped over them with a swishing sound, and instantly it so entangled them that they were helpless. It wrapped around their arms and their legs, enveloped their heads and necks, and closed about their heads and faces in smothering folds.

187Buffalo Bill understood the nature of this trap at once, and he tried to draw his knife to cut his way through it, but the clinging net so held his hands that he could not quickly get out his knife. He stumbled and fell as he tried to walk, and the girl he had been carrying dropped to the ground. She tried to rise, but, her feet being caught in the net, she, too, was entangled.

Henselman was yelling for assistance like a madman, as he clawed and sputtered and tried to push back the folds of the strange thing that had fallen upon him.

The Indians were not idle. They swarmed forward as soon as they saw the white men caught in the clinging folds of the net, and throwing themselves boldly upon them, they held them down.

Hundreds of Indians were all around the net. Escape was impossible. The white men were trapped.

CHAPTER XXVI. INDIANS AND PRISONERS.

The red priests of Zataclin had not been thrown long into confusion, nor had they permitted their superstitious fears to keep them from taking prompt action against the daring invader of the temple.

Around the upper floor of the temple ran an inside gallery, which at intervals opened on an outer gallery.

To the inner gallery they rushed as soon as they discovered that the white man had escaped from the temple with the captive. They yelled to the people below, urging them to crowd the white men close up against the walls, yells which the white men heard without comprehending their meaning.

The people obeyed, forcing them along the wall, so that they were brought under the priests on the gallery. Then at the opportune moment the priests flung down that big net which enmeshed the white men and made them prisoners.

In a very few minutes the entire party of white men and the woman were captives in the hands of the howling inhabitants of Zataclin. Instead of being tied, they were simply dragged along enmeshed in the net—dragged back to the wide door of the temple, and then dragged on inside. The Indians yelled shrilly, and the priests who superintended this curious method, shouted loud commands.

When within the temple, the ends of the net were 189caught up by scores of hands, and the net and those within it were lifted bodily and borne up a broad stairway into a room. Having been pulled into this room, the prisoners were dropped to the floor, still swathed in the binding folds of the net. Then a heavy door was closed on them and they were left alone. Beyond the closed door they heard the Indians yelling fiendishly.

It was as strange a capture as was ever made; the prisoners were like snared birds. For a few moments after their rough usage they could do nothing but lie panting on the floor. At length Buffalo Bill got out his knife, after prodigious effort, and began to cut the cords of the net. He called to the other men to do the same, and they, too, got out their knives and began to slash at the net.

Not a weapon or other bit of property belonging to the white men had been touched. Perhaps the Indians feared to touch the things the white men had in their possession, since the strange fire sticks had the power to inflict wounds and to make that thunderous roar and spout deadly smoke.

It took Buffalo Bill but a moment to free himself, and then he began to cut the cords that held Miss Fernald.

The girl had swooned again under her rough treatment, and the scout and Lieutenant Butler were trying to restore her. She was not long unconscious. When she was helped to her feet, and Lieutenant Butler led her to a couch by the wall, the couch being formed of the coats of the men, she tried to smile her gratitude, 190yet urged them not to take so much trouble for her. She looked earnestly at the famous scout, whom she recognized with intense gratitude, for she was aware that it was he who had so daringly invaded the temple to release her.

Within their close prison they listened to the ominous sounds outside.

“There is one thing,” said the scout, as he fingered his trusty revolver, “they have favored us greatly by letting us keep our weapons. We can hold a regiment at bay here.”

“But they can starve us out without much trouble,” said Lieutenant Butler.

Young Lawler was walking slowly round the room, studying its configuration.

“There is a hole up there, where the light and air come in,” he said. “There may be something above it.”

“If we could get up there we should be only that much farther from the ground,” suggested Lieutenant Butler, and, acting upon that suggestion, the scout studied the opening in the roof of the room.

“We can get up there, if we think it best,” he said. “We can make ropes out of the cords of this net, and use them to climb with. That part will be easy enough. I fancy we shall want to see where that hole will lead.”

Seeing that she had recovered somewhat, Lieutenant Butler began to ask questions of Miss Fernald. Soon they heard her story. She had wandered forth for a stroll, and had got turned around, as they had supposed, and lost herself; after that she had wandered on and on in a vain endeavor to find the camp. While 191crossing the sandy area where they had seen her footprints, she had been pounced upon by a hideous creature.

“An orang-utan!” said Professor Bounderby, with the accent of positive knowledge. “It must have frightened you very much.”

“It frightened me almost to death,” she said, “but he was not an orang-utan.”

“No?” he cried. “Not an orang-utan?” He got out his pencil and notebook. “What was it, then?”

All were now bending to listen.

“My dear young lady, if it was not an orang-utan, what kind of beast was it?”

“It was a man.”

“Not a beast, but a man! That is impossible. We saw its footprints, and——”

“It was a gnarled, bent man, hump-shouldered, with very large, long arms, and twisted, naked feet like claws. And he was an Indian, though he did not wear paint nor feathers, his clothing was simply some skins sewed loosely together. When he pounced on me, I fainted. But I regained consciousness by the time we reached the high bluffs that encircle this valley.

“In those bluffs was an opening, which held a queer elevator, and down that elevator and through a black tunnel he took me. When we came out I saw this valley and this temple, with the houses.

“I was so frightened that when he ordered me on I did not try to resist. I was helpless, and I think I was nearly crazy. He brought me to this temple, and here I was placed in a room somewhat like this. To-day 192I was tied, taken out, put in a pavilion that men carried on their shoulders, and set in the midst of a vast procession. When we got to the temple again, I discovered that I was to be murdered—killed by the priests as a sacrifice to their gods.”

Her face grew paler at the recollection of her experience, and she closed her eyes as if to shut it out of her mind. She opened them, and went on with her story.

“And then this brave man came—this man whom you call Buffalo Bill, the American scout. The rest you know.”

Bounderby still held his notebook and pencil. The professor’s thirst for knowledge seemed to make him forget his position and danger.

“Tell me,” he urged, “about this queer dwarf who captured you. Did you particularly observe his feet?”

“I noticed them—they were gnarled and twisted, as if they had been cut and subjected to torture. I never saw feet like them.” She closed her eyes again and shuddered. “But there are others here like him,” she added. “Another just like him, or nearly like him, brought food to me in my prison, and when I looked out—there were bars in my prison—I saw still others.”

“More dwarfs of that kind!” cried Bounderby, so astonished that he neglected to use his pencil. “Perhaps we have found here a race of queer dwarfs.”

“I should not call them dwarfs,” she corrected. “They were as large as any of the other Indians, only they were knotted and twisted, and they walked bent 193over. And they were clothed differently from the other Indians.”

“Re-mark-able!” said Bounderby. “Simply past all belief.”

“Yet it is but the truth.”

“My dear young lady, I do not doubt your word; I mean, it is simply so strange that it staggers the imagination.” Then he began to write furiously in his notebook, talking out the words as he set them down. “Remarkable!” he said, as he concluded. “Re-mark-able!”

CHAPTER XXVII. THE AZTEC SLAVES.

While Miss Fernald was still telling her strange story and Professor Bounderby was indulging in his characteristic comments, there was a sound of dragging footsteps beyond the closed door.

“One of those strange men, I believe!” said the girl.

“Perhaps if he opens that door we can get out!” suggested Tom Lawler, and in a moment he drew his revolver.

“No shooting!” said the scout. “The less we do of that, the better, I think. Our peril is great enough without adding to it.”

“But you mean to get away if you can?”

“Certainly, and we may do some shooting, for the purpose of frightening these Indians.”

He arose and laid hand on his revolver.

All watched the door, and saw it fly open. The space beyond was crowded with feathered and painted Indians, but at the door was a strange man-beast creature, answering to the girl’s description of the man who had captured her. He had a skin robe cast loosely about his crooked shoulders, and he bent and shambled as he walked. The Indians behind him pushed him on into the room, and immediately closed the door after him.

The scout looked curiously at the twisted feet as 195the man shuffled in. The hands were as twisted and gnarled as the feet, and his face was seamed and scarred as if it had been touched by fire or hacked with knives. He cowered, stopping close by the wall, and looking out under bushy brows at the prisoners in the room. His eyes were crafty and bloodshot. He spoke, but in words they could not understand.

Professor Bounderby pushed forward, staring at the man. In his excitement he had forgotten his pencil and notebook.

“One of those words sounded like a Maya word, used by certain of the Indians of Yucatan. I spent a year in Yucatan, studying the ruined cities, and I learned something of the Mayan language at that time.”

He began to speak in queer words to the knotted and bowed man before him.

The effect was remarkable. The man looked at him, the light of understanding in his bloodshot eyes, and then he answered.

The professor was so delighted he could have danced. His face flushed and his eyes glittered.

“He understands Maya, in a manner,” he said. “It seems that these Indians are a branch of the Mayas, or the Mayas are a branch of this tribe. All are united with the ancient Aztecs.”

Having stopped long enough to make this explanation, he began again, and for five minutes he poured out a stream of strange words, receiving answers. He had set the bowed figure to talking at a great rate. 196The professor listened, still forgetful of his precious notebook.

“Well, if this isn’t remarkable!” he said. “The mystery is unraveled. This will make my lecture a success—a prodigious success. The name of Professor Felix Bounderby will be known throughout the whole scientific world because of this. It will——”

“Remember, Professor Bounderby, that we are dying with curiosity to know what he has been telling you,” the scout reminded.

Bounderby had been fishing for his notebook, but his hand stopped its fumbling.

“Very true!” he cried. “Let me tell you his remarkable story; and if you do not say it is wonderful, I am mistaken.

“This poor man”—he pointed at the bowed form—“is the victim, I may say, of the religion of these people. They are Aztecs, who have never been in touch with white men; here in this valley they have lived century after century, practicing their ancient religion. They believe that they are children of the gods, and their priests trace descent from a great god whose name was Zataclin. They call themselves Zataclins, and Zataclin is the name of their city here.

“This poor man, and others here who are like him, are slaves; they are not of the race of these Aztecs, but belong to a tribe that lives beyond the mountains, who have had some intercourse with white men. Now and then that tribe and the Aztecs of this city are at war. Prisoners taken by these Aztecs are subjected to tortures which transform them into horrible monsters 197of the kind you see before you. After that they are held as slaves, and are treated with great indignity.

“This miserable man tells me that one of his fellow slaves, being out in the hills, saw the white girl. He was not as ignorant of the existence of white men as are the Aztecs; he had seen many of them before he was made a prisoner and held here. When he beheld this girl, it occurred to him that by capturing her and taking her to the priests he might gain their favor, and that is why he did it. He tried to make them think she had been sent here in some miraculous manner.

“As it chanced, the day of her capture fell on the day of a great religious feast, and there had been a prophecy that at some time the gods would send for a sacrifice on that feast day a creature so beautiful that her offering up on the sacrificial stone would be more acceptable than any ever made before.

“Her capture tallied with that prophecy, and they proceeded to celebrate it in a manner worthy of so great an event. We chanced to see a part of that celebration, and fortunately were in time to rescue her.”

“Vat iss?” groaned Henselman, who sat humped against the wall, up to this time in disconsolate silence. “She vill pe saccervised, eenyhow, unt ve vill pe saccervised mit her. Ve are all dead men togedder.”

“This poor man tells me” Bounderby continued, “that the Aztecs here feared to enter this room, because of the fire sticks which make so much noise and strike men down, and so they forced him to enter. He 198brings a message. If we will surrender the young lady, so that she may be sacrificed in accordance with that old prophecy, we will be permitted to depart unharmed.”

Henselman rocked eagerly forward. “Bud can ve trusd dem?” he wailed. “Aber ve do dot voult dey led us go free?”

“I suppose you’d accept such an offer?” cried young Lawler, in scorn. “By gad, I never saw such a contemptible coward as you, in all my life!”

The young woman had started up.

“It will be best to do as he says,” she declared, her face pale as death. “You cannot escape from this place. If you do not agree all of you will be killed, while if you surrender me you can go. My life will be lost anyway, even if you stay.”

“Never!” cried the scout, with stern determination. “If we must, we will all die here together.”

“Bud I am nod vanting to die alretty yet!” wailed the unhappy German. “Tell dose mans for me dot I accept.”

“Tell him,” said the scout, “that we cannot accept the offer. And tell him that our fire sticks not only make smoke and noise and wound men, but that they kill them, and that we will fight here to the death, if they do not let us go. Give him that message.”

“Aye, give it to him straight!” cried Lieutenant Butler. “Tell him they can have this Dutch pig here, crammed full of bullets, for a burnt offering!”

“But you cannot escape,” the girl urged, “it is folly to send such a reply.”

199“We will all die here together, before we will do anything of the kind,” the scout declared.

Young Lawler swung his hat in a species of mad excitement.

“We will!” he shouted. “Tell ’em that!”

Bounderby made the gnarled slave acquainted with the decision of the prisoners.

“See if it is possible to bribe him,” Buffalo Bill suggested. “Perhaps he knows a way out.”

Bounderby spoke to him again, and they saw the slave shake his head in a negative.

“There is no way out, he says,” interrupted Bounderby. “That hole up there leads only to a gallery that gives access to the shining dome on the top of the temple, and there is no way to get down, except by some passages and doors known only to the priests.”

“We will get up there and hunt for those secret passages,” said the scout.

“What shall I try to bribe him with?” said Bounderby, perplexed.

“Tell him we will give him and some of his comrades fire sticks, and that with them they can fight their way out to freedom. The thought of freedom ought to spur him to try anything.”

Bounderby spoke again to the broken slave. But the latter only shook his head sadly. Not only had his body been broken, but likewise his spirit. He had no courage left.

Beyond the closed and locked door they heard a gathering roar of voices, showing that the Aztecs out 200there were growing impatient and were demanding the return of their messenger.

The slave cast a frightened look toward the door.

“He’s got to go,” said Bounderby, “they’re calling for him out there. Is there any other message we can send by him?”

“No other!” said the scout. “Tell them that we will slay them all with the fire sticks if they do not release us, and that we will fight to the death to protect the young lady.”

Bounderby delivered the message.

“Ask him, professor, if the slave who captured the young lady was the one who attacked me in the night?”

“He says it was,” said Bounderby, when he had asked the question. “The slave thought there must be white men where there was a white woman, and he went forth to see. He thought if he could capture one of the white men and present him to the priests he would win greater favor.”

“The scoundrel!” said young Lawler.

“While you are at it, professor, ask him about the elevator and the stream which we thought gave it power.”

These questions were put and answered.

“He says that the Aztecs are a very wonderful people. They have many strange things they have made, or that were made by their forefathers. That elevator run by water power is but one of them.”

The slave turned about and hammered on the door to summon the doorkeeper.

Henselman groaned when he saw the bowed figure 201pass through the door and caught a glimpse of the excited Indians packed densely together beyond.

“Ve iss all dead men togedder!” he declared ominously.

“Shut up!” retorted Butler. “I wish you were dead!”

CHAPTER XXVIII. THE ESCAPE.

A howl of rage and disappointment arose when the slave delivered his message. But the attack which was now expected did not come.

“They intend to starve us out,” was the scout’s conjecture.

Lieutenant Butler glanced at the hole in the roof.

“Yes, I think we’d better try that,” assented the scout. “We can be no worse off than here, if we can get up there, and we may discover something.”

“Ve iss all dead togedder!” groaned Henselman, but when he saw the other members of the party begin to tear up the net for the purpose of twisting its cords into ropes, the hope of escape caused him to lend a hand.

Though the net was large, and therefore presented abundant material, the work of cutting out the cords in such a manner that they could be used was not easy. But the ropes, hand-twisted, grew in size and length, until the scout declared they had enough for their experiment.

Out of the ropes he fashioned a long lasso, and, standing in the center of the room, he hurled its noose at a supporting roof beam which projected just beneath the hole.

At the second cast he caught the beam with the loop, and when he had drawn it fast he ascended the rope, 203hand over hand, with all the dexterity of a trained acrobat. It did not take the skillful scout long to reach the opening. There, standing on the end of the beam, with his head thrust through the opening, he looked about.

“There is a gallery here, which leads to the dome,” he announced. “In the other direction it ends at a stone door, which I suppose is impassable. Just stay here while I look about a minute.”

He crawled through the opening, and placed his feet in the wide gallery.

Passing upward, he found that the gallery became a winding stairway which led into the dome. This was a round cupola, with windows overlooking the valley and the adjacent hills. He was astonished by the view to be had from those windows. Far off he could even see the conelike hill of magnetic iron which had affected the compasses, and nearer at hand, though quite distant, the white, flat stone standing upright like the wall of a tent, on which that message of the heliograph had been flashed. But there was apparently no way of escape from the dome except by a suicidal leap from one of the windows.

Below him he saw masses of Indians moving about in apparent excitement.

“Even if we could get down from here, we should be right in the midst of them,” was his thought.

When he had retraced his steps to the stairway and gallery and had gone downward and in the other direction to the stone door, which he could not even shake, he returned to the opening in the roof of the room. 204He crawled through to the beam, and rested on it, while he spoke to those below, telling them of his discoveries.

“I don’t know that we’ll be better off up here, or in the dome, than down there,” he admitted, “but we’ll at least have a better outlook, and that’s something.”

Lawler grasped the rope and began to climb it.

The scout permitted him to ascend to a seat beside him on the beam.

“I think now, lieutenant,” he said, “that it would be well to make a sort of harness, or chair, for the young lady, in that end of the rope, after which we will hoist her up to this point. Perhaps before she ascends it will be best for you to come up here and help us to lift her.”

“But I can climb,” she protested.

Nevertheless, Lieutenant Butler, assisted by Bounderby, knotted together a sort of combined chair and harness, in which she could sit, and which would support her. They saw she was too weak from her trying experience to attempt to climb the rope, and they had no thought of permitting her to try it.

Having done this, Lieutenant Butler climbed up to the perch occupied by the scout and Lawler, and all three men then lent a hand in hoisting her up to that point.

It was a hard pull, for the footing was not good, but she aided herself by pushing with her feet against the wall.

Henselman came next, in the chair she had used, assisting 205himself all he could, but groaning prodigiously; and he was followed by Professor Bounderby.

When they stepped out into the gallery, they took the rope with them; they had also brought the remnants of the big net, thinking they might be of further use.

Professor Bounderby was delighted with the view from the dome, and at once began to set down his impressions in his notebook. The others began to discuss possible ways of escape.

As he looked out at the white, tentlike rock in the distance, Buffalo Bill had a happy thought.

“Lieutenant Butler,” he said, “it would be possible, I suppose, for you to flash a message from here to the face of that rock. Or is the sun not just right for it now?”

The face of the lieutenant lighted up at the suggestion.

“We can do it,” he said. “Lucky they didn’t take our things from us. Of course if no one is near the rock the message would be useless, but we can try it.”

For the next few minutes Butler and Lawler busied themselves with getting the heliograph together and in working order, adjusting its mirrors to the sun, and training them on that white wall.

“Major Fernald is out there somewhere,” said Butler, his face flushed with hope. “The chances are not great, but he may happen to be where he will see the flashes. I’m sure we can strike that rock with them. The position of the sun in this window is all right for it, and the heliograph is in working order now.”

206Then he sighted the machine at the rock, and soon began to flash his message for help.

“The only thing to do,” he said, “is to keep it up—repeat it over and over. If they’re not there, or near there now, they may come there some time this afternoon. And we can try it again to-morrow; keep it going all day. This is a great idea, Cody. We can hold those bloody Aztecs back with our revolvers, and stay in here a week, even if we haven’t any food, and perhaps before we’re actually starved out we can reach the major.”

He worked with enthusiasm.

Buffalo Bill trained his binoculars on the white rock, and could see the flashes playing and flitting on its surface.

Hour after hour Lieutenant Butler continued his work, and when he tired, young Lawler took it up, so that a succession of messages was being sent continuously.

Over and over they said the same thing:

“We are prisoners in the temple in the valley, which you can see from the cliff walls. We are doomed. Miss Fernald is with us. Come to our help.

While this was going on, the Aztecs were not idle. They discovered soon that the prisoners had escaped from their prison room and were in the temple dome. They crowded the gallery and filled the stairway, before the scout and those with him knew that the escape from the prison room had been found out.

207Cody saw that the stone door was still closed, though doubtless the Aztecs had come through it.

“We’ll charge the rascals by and by, if we have to, and clear them out of there,” he said, “and perhaps when we do we may be able to get through that door. It might let us reach the ground.”

“Bud voult dot hellup us?” said the despairing Henselman. “Ve coult pe kilt yoost so soon as dey seen us. Id iss no use. Ve iss all dead men togedder.”

The talk of reaching Major Fernald with the heliograph had aroused Henselman’s hope a bit at first, but that hope died utterly as the hours passed without result. He saw the sun sinking, and knew that night was coming when no more messages could be sent.

“Unt maype to-morrow vill be dark like id vas yisterday,” he urged, “unt ve can’t sent no messaches at all. Id iss no use.”

Bounderby rebuked him at intervals, even though the professor’s courage had weakened until it was little better than that of the German.

“Henselman, I am heartily ashamed of you!” the professor would declare. “You are in no more danger than the rest of us. Think what fine material this will make for my lecture, when we escape from here.”

As the sun sank, and Butler declared no more messages could be sent that afternoon, a strange commotion was seen near the wall of the valley.

Indians on the highway there were seen running toward the temple. As they came nearer and met others, these began to run, too. Then behind them, in the dust of the highway, the forms of white men were 208seen, and reports of rifles sounded, the smoke puffs from the guns leaping now and then out of the dust cloud.

Buffalo Bill swung his hat and cheered.

“Help at last!” he said. “Lieutenant Butler, your messages have been seen. If I’m not mistaken, there come Major Fernald and his gallant followers. We are saved!”

Henselman leaped to his feet. “Vere?” he said, then he, too, swung his hat, roaring: “Ve are safed! Ve are safed!”

Miss Fernald leaned from a window of the dome, looking with moist eyes across the valley.

“My brother!” she whispered. “My brave brother!”

In a little while the forms of the men who were driving the Indians before them could be seen more plainly. They were coming up at a swift pace, on foot, and were shooting at every Indian they saw, thus carrying consternation into the midst of the Aztecs, who saw their friends falling slain by those mysterious fire sticks.

The Aztecs near the temple were thrown into a panic, as the white men charged them, shooting at them, and tumbling many of them down, wounded or dead.

The Indians who had crowded the gallery and stairway leading to the dome vanished through that stone door; but before Buffalo Bill and his companions could get down to it the door was closed and immovable.

Though they hammered on it, they could not shake 209it; nor could they find any means of opening it. It seemed set in a groove, in which it no doubt slid, but their utmost exertions would not move it.

Major Fernald had more than twenty men with him, and they conducted themselves like heroes.

In spite of the tremendous force which they might have expected would oppose them, they had climbed the cliff walls into the valley, and then had charged with sublime heroism upon the Indians between them and the shining temple mentioned in the heliograph message which they had fortunately seen flashing on that tentlike stone so far away.

Right into the temple they came, firing at every Indian seen; and so great was the scare they created, and so terrible the fear in which the Indians stood of those death-dealing fire sticks, that the Aztecs fled pellmell, scattering in every direction.

Some of the priests opposed them at the altar and before the sacrificial stone, only to fall dead there. But now that they were in the temple itself, they did not see the prisoners. They discovered at length, however, that they were in the high dome, and they found a way to get up to it.

They arrived at the door which shut the prisoners in, but from that side the door was not difficult to move; they had but to throw their weight against it, and it slipped along in its groove, opening for the prisoners a way to freedom.

Emily Fernald fell with hysterical sobbing into the arms of her brother.

Not many words were spent in telling how Major 210Fernald’s party, after long searching, had returned toward the point from which they had started, and while so doing had passed near the tentlike rock, and there had seen the heliograph messages; time was too precious to be wasted in much talk.

The prisoners and their rescuers hurried down from the dome, and made haste to get out of the valley of Zataclin while the fright of the Aztecs lasted.

They gained the hills beyond the cuplike valley, and by the stars found a northerly course, which they hoped would take them out of danger before morning.

When morning arrived the sky was again gray and cloudy and the compasses refused to perform their mission. But under the expert guidance of Buffalo Bill the party held as true a course as possible, so that on the second day they were far from the valley of the mysterious Aztecs of Zataclin. It was so bewildering a region that they did not care to seek it again; but were content to let the bloody-red priests and people live there undisturbed, as they had done from time immemorial.

“I think you should be content to go back to the ranch for a while, and stay with father, Emily,” said her brother, when they all had crossed the border and were on their way to the town of Bellona. “It seems to me that you’ve had enough adventures and perils for any foolhardy girl! Anyway, whatever you think about it, I simply refuse to take you again with this expedition, if it should be sent out again.”

Lieutenant Butler, for reasons of his own, heartily 211agreed with this counsel; but he maintained a dignified and discreet silence. In his own mind, however, he resolved to try to persuade the girl whom he loved—if persuasion were needed—not to expose herself to dangers and hardships in future. He was greatly relieved when Emily made known her own wishes in the matter.

“Already I have decided to return to the ranch,” she said quietly.

“I’m very glad, dear,” said the major, and then he added in a lighter tone: “We’re approaching Bellona, a small garrison town. I expect to find letters from Colonel Garland there, and I may be ordered to proceed into another section of the district. In that case, Butler and Lawler will escort you to Klamath.”

CHAPTER XXIX. AN ENIGMATICAL HOST.

On reaching Bellona, the major’s prediction was verified, and his orders were carried out by the gallant young lieutenant. Meanwhile, after saying farewell to these friends, Cody—who also received instructions, as will be seen later—rode forth alone, on the return trail, and thence across the borders of New Mexico, to a small ranch known as the Porfiero Hacienda, where he arrived about twilight.

When he hitched his horse to the post beyond the small, flower-filled garden of the ranch, he walked to the narrow path that ran between the flowers, and came thus toward the house.

It was a large, rambling adobe, built about a little court, or placita, in the Mexican style, but had a number of attached rooms which formed winglike additions, these seeming to have been tacked on as an afterthought, to accommodate the needs of a growing household.

The style was more common to the New Mexico of a former period than to that of the present, and that the building was old was shown not only by its architecture, but by the tumble-down and only partially repaired condition of certain parts of it, especially the out-thrust wings.

Such of the windows as were visible to the scout as he passed up the flower-bordered walk were small, 213nearly square, and seemed little more than holes through the thick walls. The flowers, too, while they bloomed with that profusion which results from a hot sun in a warm climate, seemed neglected, though there were apparently attempts, recently made, to remedy this. Everything betokened a house once of a certain magnificence, long abandoned, or nearly so, and now inhabited, and renovated with hasty and ineffective attempts to restore it to something of its pristine glory.

Over Buffalo Bill’s head was the bright blue sky of New Mexico, untouched by a cloud, a sky belonging to a land of drought. There was no water in that sky, and the only water visible was that which trickled through some half-choked irrigating ditches and fed the plants growing in the garden through which the scout walked.

He was almost to the door, when a Mexican servant appeared, stared at him, and then retreated hastily, without bidding him welcome. The servant had the air of being surprised and startled.

In another minute, and just as the scout reached the wide door, which had been closed, the door opened, and a dark-faced man stood there. He looked curiously at the scout, then smiled and extended his hand.

“Welcome, señor,” he said. “In the Southwest, whoever comes is our guest, so long as he is willing to bestow on us the pleasure of his company. Ah, señor, you do not know how the sight of an unfamiliar face cheers us here in this remote region of dust and sand! Welcome again, señor.”

Yet the welcome in his face was not as warm as that 214of his words. In fact, a shadow of some kind had fallen on it; and, as the scout accepted the extended hand, the dark-faced man searched his countenance closely, as if questioning.

“You are Señor Leon Ruiz?” the scout asked.

“I am happy to answer to that name, señor.”

“Permit me, then, to introduce myself as William F. Cody, an American army scout, sometimes known as Buffalo Bill. You have a handsome place here, señor.”

The dark face of the man calling himself Leon Ruiz paled slightly.

“You honor me with your presence, Señor Cody,” he replied. “I have heard of you, and it makes me happy to offer you the poor hospitality of the Porfiero Hacienda. Whatever I have is yours, and I and my servants are at your distinguished service.”

He bowed in the courtly, yet self-abasing, Spanish fashion, with his hand laid on his heart, and his thin lips wreathed in a smile. The smile, the bow, and the attitude made Buffalo Bill think of Mephistopheles.

Leon Ruiz led the way through a wide hall into a large square room. Old dusty curtains of tapestry hung at the small, narrow, deep windows. The chairs and couches, while elegant, were very old and worn. The white walls were ornamented with pictures of saints. Over the one door, and the only thing which was not in harmony with the room, was the head of an elk, showing great branching antlers.

“I have not been here long,” Ruiz explained. “Soon I hope to have things more in keeping with what this place should be. It is very old, señor—an old Spanish 215hacienda, built three hundred years ago, and long neglected, so that it is falling down and the furniture is in ruins. But your generous American mind will pardon defects, I am sure.”

His speech had a hollowness that was not pleasing, and the glance he bent on the scout, out of the corners of his eyes, would not have been reassuring, if the scout had seen it. But Buffalo Bill was at that moment looking around the room.

“You have not been in possession here long?” said the scout.

“Barely two months, señor. Perhaps you would like to hear the history of the old place? It is interesting.”

“I should be delighted.”

“As I said, it is very old, and was built by one of the old Spanish conquistadores—one of the early explorers and conquerors. The Spaniards who subdued the natives were but a handful in comparison with the numbers they governed. They conquered the territory, took possession of it in the name of the King of Spain, and proceeded to rule it. But the conquered Indians were at times rebellious and troublesome, and were murderously disposed toward their conquerors. That can scarcely be wondered at, when it is remembered that the Spaniards subjected them to slavery and hard toil in the mines. Those mines, producing gold, silver, and turquoise, had been worked by the Indians for centuries before the Spaniards came, and it must have seemed a hardship when they who had regarded themselves as the owners were forced to toil in those 216mines, to enrich men who were their enemies and had enslaved them.

“There were several rebellions, one a very bloody one. To protect themselves, the Spaniards built houses such as this, of strong adobe walls, which the Indians, who had only bows and arrows and lances for weapons, could do nothing to destroy. The walls, you will observe, are very thick, and the roof, also of adobe, laid on a framework of wood, could not be burned.

“In one of the rooms here I can show you a spring of water, or what seems a spring, bubbling up in the middle of the floor; it is not truly a spring, but water conducted by hidden underground pipes from the mountains. Furnished with water and plentiful food supplies, as well as with ammunition for their fire-arms, the Spaniards were able to defy the natives, and finally subdued them again, and forever after held them in subjection.

“There you have the history, in brief, of this most interesting house, so far as it relates to those early days and to its builders.

“Its later history is not so interesting, I fear. It descended to the Ruiz family, of Spain, but was abandoned at various times, for many years, as its owners preferred to live in gay Madrid to dwelling in this desert land of the New World. A year ago my father died, and the place came to me by inheritance. I had often heard of our great estate in New Mexico. Things told of it took on the colors of gay romance, in my childish fancy.

“Two months ago I arrived here, to find it much as 217you see it now. I took possession, and have been here since. I have tried to restore it in some respects, and the work of restoration still goes on; but, señor, it was and is far from the place of my childish imaginings. Perchance if you should come this way in a year from now, I might have something more worthy to show you and better hospitality to offer you. But what I have, and such as I have, is at your service.”

While telling this, Leon Ruiz’s air was furtive, as if he studied his guest; and Buffalo Bill took note not only of the manner in which the account was given, but also of the personal appearance and dress of his host.

Leon Ruiz was very dark, with sloe-black eyes, and teeth white as milk. Those teeth gleamed now and then in one of his flickering smiles.

Ruiz now stepped to the door, and gave an order to a servant.

“We will have supper in a very short time, señor. And I have ordered your horse stabled and fed.”

“You are very kind,” said the scout. “I have no right to demand hospitality of you.”

“The room next to this, overlooking the garden, will be your guest chamber to-night,” said Ruiz. “It is not as good as I would wish it, but such as it is, señor, it is yours for as long as you are willing to stay.”

“I think I shall have to go on, after I have enjoyed your kind hospitality, Señor Ruiz,” said the scout. “I should like to make a longer stop in this most interesting place, but the limits of my time forbid it at present.”

218The Spaniard lifted his brows inquiringly.

Buffalo Bill had watched the man closely, and now he decided to speak what was in his mind.

“You are not a Moor?” he said, asking the question so suddenly that Ruiz was taken by surprise.

“I am of Moorish descent,” he acknowledged. “I feel that you have a reason for asking that question.”

“I have,” the scout admitted.

“I shall be pleased to hear it, of course, or so much as you wish to confide to me.” He was looking straight at the scout now, his sloe-black eyes half veiled by their heavy black lashes. “The Moors were long in Spain, you know,” he went on, “and there is a good deal of Moorish blood still in that land. One of my ancestors was a Moorish king.”

“My mission here,” said the scout “concerns a Moor. He is, if he is still living, a native of a little kingdom lying south of Morocco; in fact, he is the crown prince of that kingdom. He came to this country a few months ago, and was last heard of somewhere in this region. There are several reports, none of which may be correct, concerning his disappearance. My friend Major Fernald, whom I have just left on his way to Sagetown, not far from here, has been telling me a great deal about this young man’s disappearance.

“One report has it that he and his party wandered into the mountains of Arizona and were killed by Apaches. Another report says that while crossing from Yuma to some copper mines in New Mexico, he and his party were set upon by road agents, and he 219was slain by them. Another report declares that he was captured by a band of Mexican brigands, and that he is now held in Old Mexico, the brigands intending, perhaps, to demand ransom for him by and by, when they feel that it is safe to do so. Still another account says that he and some others were traveling by stage from Rincon to San Paz, and that the stage was lost in the quicksands while crossing Perditas River. Which of these, or whether any of them, can be believed, I do not know. What is really known is, that he has dropped out of sight in a mysterious manner, and it may be that all these stories were set afloat merely to cover up his real fate.

“The facts so far as known have been submitted to the United States department of state, and were communicated to the army officer in command of the military division of the Southwest. Upon Major Fernald’s advice, I have to-day been detailed to look into the matter and make a report; with further instructions to aid this Moorish crown prince, if I find he is in distress.

“There you have my story, Señor Ruiz, and the explanation of why I am here.”

The Spaniard had listened with an intensity that made his black eyes shine.

“It is a surprising account,” he admitted.

“I might not have told it,” said the scout, “but for your declaration of Moorish descent. Because of that, it occurred to me that the story might interest you.”

“It interests me very much, señor. It is marvelous, romantic, like one of the ancient tales of Spanish 220brigandage.” He smoothed his thin mustache with his jeweled right hand. “But is it reliable?”

“I think so; my government thinks so. Otherwise, I should not have been dispatched to look into it.”

“Very true,” said Ruiz, smiling incredulously. “It has the sound of a fairy story.”

The scout regarded him attentively.

“Of course, you have heard nothing of this, yourself?”

“I? Not until this moment.”

“It struck me as strange and peculiar that while looking for this lost Moor, I should find, at the first hacienda I came upon, a man who is of Moorish descent. It seemed really a remarkable coincidence.”

“Very true, señor. It does seem so. What was the name of this lost crown prince?”

“Raoul Mogador.” Buffalo Bill took a letter from his pocket, as if to refresh his memory. “Yes, Raoul Mogador. My memory does not always hold names of that kind as well as I should like. But that is it. His father is the present king, I understand, and at his death this young Moor will become king. I suppose the country over which this king rules isn’t much bigger than a pocket handkerchief; but to be king, even of a small country, is no doubt considered a very high honor by those who are fortunate enough to come into the line of succession. And, of course, the people of this little pocket-handkerchief kingdom are very much concerned about the strange disappearance of the man they expect will some day rule over 221them. Hence, they have asked our government to discover what has become of him.”

“Very interesting, I admit,” said Ruiz, “but, indeed, I have heard nothing at all of this, until you told me. Pray, is there any way in which I might offer my aid?”

“I can think of nothing, so long as you have heard nothing. I must push on to-night.”

“And your destination?” said Ruiz, his voice showing the interest he could not conceal.

“I shall cross the desert below here to San Paz, and shall look there for some clew. It is nearer than this to the point where, those conflicting reports say, he vanished. Perhaps I can strike some one who can set me on the right track to get my information.”

“Permit me to wish you success,” said Ruiz, but his tone was not sincere. “And when you return,” he added, “I trust you will again accept my poor hospitality here, and tell me of your adventures in search of the Moorish prince. Strange that a prince should be lost in this republic! Princes are out of place here. Perhaps that is why he became lost!

“Permit me to step out and see how our supper is coming on,” he said, rising. “I have not the most reliable servants in the world, señor, I am sorry to say. They must be watched, or things go wrong continually. I will return in a little while.”

From a shelf he took cigarettes and matches, and placed them on the small table near which the scout sat.

“Your pardon for not thinking of these, señor, but 222you can enjoy a smoke and the society of your own pleasant thoughts while I am away.

“Adios!” he said, turning about in the doorway, and bowing. Then he vanished into the wide hall, and was gone.

CHAPTER XXX. THE GOLDEN DAGGER.

“Cunning as a Spaniard and treacherous as a Moor!” thought Buffalo Bill, selecting one of the cigarettes and lighting it, after having made sure by taste and smell that it was not doctored. He looked at the door where Leon Ruiz had disappeared. “I wonder how much he knows, if anything? That will be hard to find out. To judge by his looks, he is more Moor than Spaniard. What a curious room! A good place for a prison. These walls are wonderfully thick, and if the windows and door were properly barred, a fellow would have a hard time getting out.”

Sitting there, he recalled the verbal instructions of the colonel, who had asked him to undertake this difficult and dangerous commission. Colonel Garland had written to Major Fernald and to Cody, giving full instructions:

“At the old Porfiero Hacienda you will find a man who has but lately come there and taken possession, making his appearance from no one knows where. He is said to be a Spaniard, and claims the estate as his by inheritance. So far as I know, his claim may be true. I want you to see him, and have a talk with him. You will be able to judge something by what he says and does when you tell him that you are looking for Prince Mogador. He may know nothing, and he may know a great deal. As to that, you will have to be the judge, and you can be trusted to find 224out as much as any other man could. I am sending you because I trust so implicitly in your wisdom and discretion.”

Buffalo Bill smoked his cigarette quietly as he thought over Colonel Garland’s instructions.

“I have tried to sound the fellow,” was his thought, “yet the result has put me very much at sea. I shall have to talk with him further and watch him closely. I know my story surprised him, and it seemed to startle him. Why should it startle him, if he knows nothing? And how does it chance that he came to this place at about the time the prince disappeared?”

Ruiz was gone so long that the scout rose and began to walk around the room, inspecting the pictures of saints and the curtains and tapestry. As he did so, he came to a set of hanging shelves in a corner.

At first glance, the shelves seemed to contain only ore specimens, apparently gathered in the surrounding hills. There were greenish specimens of copper ore, pyrites, glittering quartz, and one from a turquoise mine showing the turquoise in its matrix of stone. Buffalo Bill had seen many similar specimens, and was not interested. But as he lifted a large slab of green copper ore, there was displayed beneath it a queer dagger, which at once caught his eye.

The dagger was large and ponderous, with a handle that seemed to be gold. It was apparently of Moorish make, and the gold handle was covered with fine and intricate figures and scrollwork.

Buffalo Bill lifted it to the light of the window and looked at it with marked interest.

225“A strange-looking dagger,” was his thought. “I never saw one like it. It must be rare and valuable.”

He passed his thumb along the keen edges of the double blade, and felt of the sharp point.

“A nasty weapon in a fight, if handled by a fanatical Moor. I judge it is Moorish.”

He placed the dagger where he had found it, and, standing by the window, became lost in thought.

It struck him as strange that in this house he should find that dagger of Moorish make. Yet, when he recalled that Leon Ruiz had said he was of Moorish descent, it did not seem so strange, after all. No doubt, Ruiz had come legitimately into possession of it, the dagger had been handed down from some Moorish ancestor. Ruiz had declared the family legends held that one of his ancestors had been a Moorish king.

Turning these things over in his mind, Buffalo Bill began to conclude that it was very natural, after all, to find that dagger in Ruiz’s house.

“I suppose he didn’t think to show it to me when he was talking of his Moorish descent. He may have many Moorish relics. I suppose he has. In this matter I must not let my imagination run away with sober judgment.”

He was still standing by the window, pondering, when he heard a light step. He had observed that the sun had gone down and that night was at hand.

When he turned from the window, expecting to see Ruiz in the doorway, he beheld another man, whose dress proclaimed him to be a Mexican, although there 226was something of the bandit type in his appearance, in the slashed trousers, the short Mexican jacket, and the crimson waist sash, with knife sticking in it. The face looked more Spanish than Mexican, and what was intended to be a smile curling the thin-mustached lip was rather a sneer of cruelty and cunning.

Even more than Leon Ruiz, the scout distrusted this man at once.

“Señor Ruiz has been called away,” said the man, speaking with a peculiar accent, that had been noticeable also in the speech of Ruiz. “One of the herdsmen was thrown by his horse and has suffered a broken leg. Señor Ruiz has gone to attend him. But he bade me serve you in his place, and I have the pleasure to announce that supper is awaiting you. Permit me to introduce myself as Ramon Periguez, the major-domo here. If you will kindly follow me, señor.”

He turned back into the hall, and the scout followed him, after a moment of hesitation.

While passing through the hall into the dining room, Buffalo Bill looked from the doorway and saw only the usual quiet of the place.

The scout and the major-domo were the only two persons at the supper table. They were waited on by a light-footed servant, dressed in white, who came and went about as if he were an automaton speaking never a word except when directly addressed. The scout noticed that he spoke English very badly. His face was as dark as the face of Leon Ruiz.

“Señor Ruiz was telling me something of the interesting story you bring,” said the major-domo, while 227the servant was pouring the wine. “I trust I may be permitted to hear it from your own lips. It is a remarkable thing, that a Moroccan prince should even be in this country, not to speak of his getting lost, or disappearing, in that absurd way. He ought to have felt quite at home in this sand-and-dust region.”

Buffalo Bill noted that he took the glasses from the hand of the servant, instead of permitting the servant to place them on the table.

“You will have an interesting search for this remarkable crown prince, I doubt not!”

His hand shook a little as he pushed toward Buffalo Bill one of the glasses, and the keen-eyed scout saw a wine-colored powder escape from his fingers into the glass.

The thing was done so deftly, and the powder dissolved so quickly, that Buffalo Bill was almost ready to believe his eyes had fooled him.

Yet he knew now that he faced a dangerous foe, and he believed that a lie had been told him to account for the absence of Leon Ruiz. His wits were aroused instantly, and strengthened for a conflict.

The story of the young prince he told again, not because he now believed that this man, Ramon Periguez, cared to hear it, but to occupy the time and give him a chance to watch Periguez.

Periguez turned his head to speak to the servant, and, with a quickness that would have done credit to a professional sleight-of-hand performer, the scout shifted the glasses of wine, drawing Periguez’s to his side and pushing his own over in place of it.

228The servant saw what Periguez did not, and the napkin resting across his arm dropped to the floor. He stooped to get it, and said something in a tongue unknown to the scout. It was like an ejaculation, such as might be made under the circumstances; but the start which Ramon Periguez gave told the watchful scout that the servant had informed him of the shifting of the wine glasses.

When the major-domo turned about, after saying a word or two in the same unknown tongue to the servant, his dark face had changed to a sickly yellow.

“I observe that you do not speak Spanish to your man here,” said the scout. “Is he a Moor?”

“It was the language of the Spanish mountaineers,” said Periguez, evidently disconcerted and confused. “He is from a little hill town lying far from any of the recognized routes of travel, and the language there is difficult for even a Spaniard not well acquainted with it.”

“Very interesting,” Buffalo Bill observed dryly, toying with the glass he had taken.

“There is much Moorish blood in the mountains of Spain,” said the major-domo, trying to steady his nerves and get control of himself, for he realized that his manner was betraying him.

“I have never been in Spain,” said the scout quietly.

“You should travel in Spain. You would find it a very interesting country.”

“You are Spanish, of course?”

Periguez bowed. “I am from Madrid.” He lifted his wine glass as if to put it to his lips, but caught the 229table linen between his fingers as he did it, and by an apparent accident let the glass fall to the floor, where it was shivered into atoms. He started up nervously at the crash.

“How awkward of me!” he exclaimed, and, summoning the servant, he ordered the broken glass to be removed. He had another glass brought and filled.

“Very excellent wine,” said the scout, sipping his.

“The finest to be procured in Spain,” said Periguez. “It is made by the monks of San Sebastian, and it has a great reputation in my country. You were telling me of the Moroccan prince,” he said, smiling with hypocritical lips. “And I believe you were to tell me your plans for getting at the real facts in this most interesting mystery?”

The pallor was going out of his face; he had got rid of the drugged wine which the scout had so cleverly passed back to him, and, therefore, he felt better. Yet he was doubtless wondering how it came about that the scout had suspected him.

The scout talked of his journey to the Porfiero Hacienda, of the mystery which had sent him forth, and of his hopes soon to get some tangible information concerning the missing man. All the while he watched Periguez closely.

But, having been caught and foiled once, the latter did not try anything more; perhaps he was not prepared for anything more.

“I have been making some chemical studies lately,” Buffalo Bill remarked, quite casually. “And they brought me one bit of queer information. A sleeping 230potion has been discovered which so resembles wine in color, and dissolves so readily, that it can be administered by the physician or nurse to the patient without the latter even dreaming that it is being administered. It is used when, in cases where it ought to be given, the patient objects to taking anything of the kind.”

He touched his wine glass, and watched Periguez’s face, and again he saw that sickly yellow over-spread it.

“I had not heard of it. You are not a chemist?”

“A mere dabbler in chemistry, that is all. No man can be everything, though he may be properly interested in many lines of information. I try to be a good scout, and I find that is quite enough.”

“Very true,” said the major-domo. “And from all I hear you have a distinguished reputation in your line.”

“Thanks!” said the scout dryly, as he glanced at his watch. “Señor Ruiz tarries long,” he remarked.

“He had to go some distance,” Periguez explained. “You will at least stay until he returns?”

The scout dropped the watch back into his pocket.

“I have decided to accept his hospitality and remain overnight at Porfiero Hacienda.”

“Good!” said Periguez, and there was undoubted satisfaction in his tone. “It distressed him to think that you could not accept his hospitality for a short time, at least. We have very few callers here, and enjoy so much the few visits we get that we would fain have our guests remain with us much longer than they are ever willing.”

231They arose from the table.

“Now you will permit me to show you some of the interesting things of this queer old house,” said Periguez.

As they strolled from room to room, the scout deftly led him to the hanging shelves containing the ore specimens and the dagger of gold.

“Ah!” he said, standing before the shelves and looking at the specimens, lifting one as he spoke, and revealing the dagger hidden beneath it. “This is a strange weapon, Señor Periguez!”

“It is very old Spanish,” said Periguez. “A magnificent weapon, as you see!”

“Not Moorish?” said the scout.

“The pattern may be Moorish; I don’t know as to that. Much Moorish ornamentation is still used by the Spanish sword-makers. That scroll work may very well be Moorish. Why did you ask, señor?”

“I had no reason, other than curiosity. I simply desired to know.”

Then they strolled on, and the dagger was not spoken of again.

CHAPTER XXXI. AGAIN IN DANGER.

The hour was late, and Buffalo Bill sat alone in the room to which he had been shown by Ramon Periguez. The door and window were where he could see them. There was no lock on the door, but he had set a chair against it, so that the moving of the chair would attract his attention, if any one tried to get into the room there.

The great scout’s suspicions were keenly alive. A sense of peril in the air made his nerves tingle. He did not know whence the danger was to come, yet that it would come he was sure.

The attempt to drug his glass of wine, the strange behavior in other ways of the major-domo, the singular disappearance of Leon Ruiz, were of themselves enough to arouse his keenest distrust. To them he added the fact that Ruiz was a Moor, yet denied it, claiming to be a Spaniard.

“The distance ridden by Leon Ruiz must be long, as he has not yet returned,” mused the scout. He had put out his candle and sat alone in the darkness, but now he struck a match and glanced at his watch. “Past midnight! I think I’ll lie down a while.”

Cody looked at the chair against the door, and inspected the window. It was narrow and held but a loose sash, with small panes of glass. There was no way to bar it. He lay down on the bed without removing 233his clothes, and near his hand he placed his revolver; his face was turned toward the window. There was no moon, but the stars were bright and gave a good deal of light. The room was in heavy shadow.

It was not Buffalo Bill’s intention to fall asleep, but when an hour or more had passed without any occurrence whatever, he yielded to the feeling of drowsiness which stole over him.

As he knew afterward, he slept full three hours. Then he awoke. He heard nothing and saw nothing, yet some subtle sense told him that enemies had stolen into the room. The chair was where he had placed it by the door, and the window seemed not to have been disturbed. This made it certain that if enemies were in the room, they had gained it by some secret way.

Buffalo Bill lay quite still, though his hand stole softly to his revolver and clutched it.

When he heard nothing, he turned his head slowly to look about.

By the opposite wall he saw a dim form, whose eyes reflected the light that came in from the window, and so were made visible.

“Ramon Periguez!” was the thought of the scout. “He is in here with assassins, and they will kill me if they can. They do not intend that I shall go in search of that missing prince—which proves very conclusively that they have good reasons for wishing to stop such an investigation as I intend making. Well, we’ll see who wins or loses, Ramon Periguez, major-domo of the Porfiero Hacienda, or myself.”

With a quick motion, he threw his arm over and 234fired at the crouching figure. The report of the revolver was deafening, but it did not cover up the sound of the man’s fall. Then, through the thick smoke over the bed, the scout sprang up and leaped for the window.

As he did so, two revolvers spoke within the room, one of them chipping the adobe from the wall right over his head, and the other cutting a hole through the big hat the scout carried in his left hand. He gained the little window, hearing confused cries, trampling feet, and a deep groan, and went through it to the outside like a scudding rat. Then he dropped quickly to the ground.

Whoever the would-be assassins were, he had thwarted them, and wounded one of their number.

Buffalo Bill was now in the garden. He ran quickly across it, and leaped the low adobe wall that hedged it in.

Before him were the stable and the horse corral, and to the stable he hastened. Behind him, in the hacienda, he heard cries and shouts and sounds of running feet.

Dashing into the stable, where his horse should have been, he saw that it was not there. Apparently it had not been placed in the stable, or else it had later been removed from it. Nor were there any other horses in the stable, and none were in the corral.

“Left afoot!” was his thought. “They have horses, and they think they can ride me down.”

He darted out of the stable, having no desire to be caught in it and hemmed in.

235As he ran along the wall and on around the wire fence of the corral, he heard footsteps in the flower garden, and then, in the faint starlight, he saw two men appear. Their voices reached him, and the voice of one he recognized as that of Ramon Periguez.

“Some other scoundrel got my bullet, eh? That is bad. I had hoped it was the major-domo. Bullets are good for a rascal of that stamp.”

Beyond the corral the scout, to his satisfaction, saw a horse hitched to a post. It bore a saddle and bridle. But a man was running toward it from the opposite side of the house. Apparently, the horse had been made ready and left there for this man’s use.

“They provided against contingencies that they hardly expected would arise,” was the scout’s thought. “They were sure they could kill me in that room. It had a secret entrance by which they came in. But they ought to have blocked up that window. A little slip like that sometimes makes all the difference in the world in one’s plans.”

Cody was running toward the horse, but the man running from the corner of the house to get to the horse had the advantage in being much nearer the animal.

The scout’s revolver came out, and he halted for one brief second.

“It’s almost discreditable to win even such a race in this manner!”

The revolver cracked, and the man tumbled to the ground with a broken leg.

“Fire upon me, and you get the next bullet through 236your head!” the scout shouted to him, as he reached the horse and sprang into the saddle. Bending forward, he severed the rope that held it to the post. Then he plunged the spurs into its sides, and the horse started off with great bounds, being headed straight away from the hacienda.

There were more cries and shouts in the darkness behind him, followed by the barking reports of revolvers, as the men there began to fire at the figure they beheld faintly flying onward through the gloom.

The bullets went wild, but immediately there sounded a pounding of hoofs, showing that a pursuit had begun.

Buffalo Bill bent forward on the neck of his horse, stroked its mane, and laughed quietly.

“Old fellow, it was a great favor that they left you there for me, after taking my horse! They didn’t intend it, of course. I wish you could talk, for you might be able to make some rare revelation. But I guess something.”

A thunder of hoofs dinned behind him, and cries floated to him. He drove his steed on madly for nearly an hour, and then shifted into the course he wished to pursue.

“Too bad to scorn the hospitality of Leon Ruiz and Ramon Periguez in this way, yet it seems best,” he remarked, as if speaking to the horse, which was proving itself to be a speedy animal. “And I really hadn’t concluded my investigations there! However, a few things seem to be plain.

“It is plain that Ruiz and his major-domo know 237much more about the strange disappearance of Prince Mogador than they would be willing to admit. It is further plain that Ruiz and that servant are Moors, and perhaps Periguez is also a Moor. Another thing is clear: My coming frightened them, and they made sudden plans to put me out of the way. That can mean nothing else but that they fear me. The wine held something worse than a sleeping potion; the powder was a poison, and if I had swallowed it I should no doubt be dead before this time. Ah, well, I am out of their clutches, and I’ll take care not to fall into them again!”

He glanced backward, listening, but he heard no sounds of his pursuers.

CHAPTER XXXII. THE MYSTERY OF THE DAGGER.

Shortly before daybreak Buffalo Bill turned aside again, rode at an easy gait for a couple of miles, and then sought a resting place. He found it in a glade watered by a spring. The glade contained grass, as well as water, for his horse.

Trusting to the same mysterious faculty which had aroused and warned him of danger in the hacienda, Buffalo Bill lay down, wrapped in the Mexican blanket he had found behind the saddle, and gave himself up to deep sleep. Yet deeply as he slept, he would have been aroused by the slightest sound of a suspicious nature, though the movements of the horse did not disturb him in the least.

Many a night when Indian foes hunted for his life, he had thus lain down to get a little needed rest, though knowing that he was literally surrounded; and he had trusted to the security given by that singular faculty which warned him as certainly of danger as the odor of some venomous serpent warned him of its presence. Buffalo Bill never attempted to explain this, but he had found that he could trust to it.

It was broad day when he awoke. The horse was lying down, after having eaten the grass to the end of its tether.

From the edge of the bushes the scout scanned the country in the direction of Porfiero Hacienda, and 239then, with his field glasses, from the other edge of the little grove he surveyed the mountains that loomed before him. They were an outthrust spur of the Superstition Range, their sides nearest him being palisaded, barren of trees, and almost as steep in places as the walls of a house. They seemed to cut him off from the route he had chosen. He studied them long, searching for a pass that would lead in the direction of the Perditas River and the little town of San Paz.

As he made this search along the base of the mountain, his glasses caught a brief view of a horseman riding there. The man was far off, and before the scout could make him out clearly, he had ridden behind some tall rocks, out of sight.

But the man’s presence there, combined with the pursuit of the night, suggested the possibility that some of the hacienda pursuers had passed and were now ahead of him.

“And that means that I’ve got to be careful as I go on,” was his thought. “It wouldn’t be pleasant, or healthy, to be caught by those rascals in some narrow pass of those mountains.”

As he had no food, the scout ventured to shoot a sage rabbit. He doubted if any one was near enough to hear the report of his revolver. Anyway, as he required food, he was willing to take the risk.

Over a fire of dry sticks he cooked the rabbit he had killed, and from the borders of the grove he watched to see if the smoke attracted attention. It was a light smoke; yet in that clear air it might be seen a long distance.

240When Buffalo Bill had satisfied his hunger, he mounted and rode forward again, but he shifted to an indirect course that would screen him and his horse as they approached the precipitous walls of the Superstition Mountains. He saw no one now, the rider beheld from the grove had vanished completely.

Arriving at a point near where he had seen that rider with his glasses, the scout dismounted, and after tying the horse, he set out on foot, to inspect the ground where it seemed the horseman had been. Great was his surprise, as he thus walked on, to come suddenly face to face with Ramon Periguez.

Periguez was at the moment scanning the ground, as if also looking for tracks, and he was taken by surprise quite as much as the scout.

“Strange that we meet here!” was Buffalo Bill’s greeting, when Periguez lifted himself with a start on hearing the scout’s footsteps.

That sickly yellow came into the Spanish Moor’s face; but it passed instantly, giving place to a hot flush of anger. For a moment Periguez did not speak, while his right hand stole stealthily toward his revolver.

“I wouldn’t do that, señor,” said the scout coolly. “The risk is too great.”

“Do what?” Periguez snarled.

“Try to draw that revolver. If you should try it seriously, another revolver might go off, to your hurt.”

“You mean that you would shoot me?”

“I should certainly defend myself, señor. How does it come that you are here?”

241“My horse brought me.”

“Very good. I presumed as much. I mean why are you here? The hour is early, and Porfiero Hacienda is some distance off. You were looking for me.”

“I was not. Yet, if I was?”

“You and your rascals tried to assassinate me in my room at the hacienda last night. You slipped in by some secret passage and were in the room before I knew it. But I sleep like the weasel, señor, and I awoke in time, fortunately for me. I was sorry to shoot one of your servants, I thought the fellow was you.”

Periguez’s black eyes burned with anger he had tried vainly to suppress. A sudden reckless defiance flushed his face.

“Yes!” he shouted. “We followed you, and you shall not escape us now! I admit that I was looking here for the tracks of your horse. I thought you had already passed along. But I have men here, and you cannot escape us this time.”

Buffalo Bill folded his arms and looked with a mocking smile at the enraged man.

“You are overconfident, my good major-domo. I really fear you are overconfident! Tell me, why did you seek my life last night, and why have you and your villains chased me to this point?”

“Do I have to answer the questions of an American dog?”

“You may feel the bite of the American dog, señor, unless you choose your words with more care. It 242isn’t pleasant to be insulted even by a murderous scoundrel.”

“You shall rue this!” Periguez panted, his hand again stealing toward his revolver in spite of the scout’s warning.

“I think I can tell you. You know what has become of Prince Mogador. His disappearance is to benefit you, or your employers. Confess it, my dear Periguez, it will save both of us trouble!”

Ramon’s revolver came out with a quick motion, and he lifted it to fire at the scout, a cry of triumph at the same time rising from his lips. But the cry changed to a groan.

Something bright shot downward and struck him in the breast as he lifted the revolver. The weapon dropped from his hand, and he stumbled backward, with that bright thing protruding from his bosom. It was a gold-handled dagger!

Buffalo Bill had not touched the man who threatened him, but the dagger of gold, dropping from the sky, had struck the villain down in a manner that was bewildering and mysterious.

The astounded scout leaped to the rascal’s assistance as he thus tumbled backward. He bent over him, as he dropped to the ground, and then, kneeling by him, he lifted Periguez’s head.

But the man was already dead, the dagger had been driven to his heart. It was a thing so unexpected and astonishing that Buffalo Bill was bewildered.

As soon as he saw that Periguez was beyond help, Buffalo Bill glanced up at the sky, and at the cliff 243which rose close by him; but neither in the sky nor on the cliff did he see anything to elucidate this mystery. He looked at the dagger. He had already noticed that its handle was of a dull, golden luster, but now he stared at it in wide-eyed amazement.

“The dagger of gold!” he whispered, as if he could not trust himself to voice a thing so unbelievable. “The dagger that I saw in that room at the hacienda! No, it can’t be! Yet it is. It is the same handle, showing the same figures and scrollwork.”

He looked around again, staring. He searched the face of the cliff, and even the sky.

“Where did the dagger come from?”

He took hold of the handle, and with difficulty drew out the weapon. The keen, double-edged, sharp-pointed blade dripped blood as he held it up. He looked at the bloody blade, and again studied the lines and scrollwork of the handle.

“The identical dagger!” he said. “And it was either hurled from that cliff, or dropped from the sky, and slew Periguez. It sounds like a crazy dream.”

He wiped the dagger on the grass, to remove the blood from the blade.

Periguez was dead. His revolver, with which he had tried to shoot the scout, lay, as it had fallen, on the grass.

The scout looked into the dead man’s face almost with sorrow, though he had been given no reason for loving this man, who in the night had sought to assassinate him, and, having followed him with a band of men on fleet horses, had then tried to shoot him.

244The body of Periguez seemed almost grotesque, as it lay thus, sprawled on its back, the yellow face upturned to the sky, the black eyes open and staring. The costume, fantastic in the extreme, with the crimson scarf holding a keen knife, seemed unbecoming on the dead.

Having cleaned the blade, the scout again and again inspected the dagger, reaching each time the conclusion already gained, that it was none other than the gold-handled dagger which he had seen at the hacienda.

How it had come to be in this place, and had dropped apparently out of the sky, to strike Periguez down, was a mystery that promised to baffle solution.

CHAPTER XXXIII. A STRANGE MESSAGE.

As Buffalo Bill glanced round again, he began to look for tracks in the soil. He saw only his own, and those of Periguez, which came from the opposite direction.

“In following these I can perhaps find the men who were with him,” was his thought. “They may be scattered now, but if he had followers, or companions, he left them at some point, certainly; and by pursuing his tracks the trail of the other men can be picked up. Yet I should not care to go on without my horse; and if I rode while following these tracks the risk of being seen would be great. I should like to know who was with him, but it may not be worth my while.”

He was carrying the gold-handled dagger in his hand. It slipped from his fingers, as he held it carelessly, and struck with a sharp click on a stone at his feet. He stared down at it with a gasping cry.

Small wonder that he did so; what he saw was enough to make him gasp and stare.

The fall on the stone had released some hidden spring in the dagger’s handle, and it had opened. Within the cavity a twisted something was seen resembling paper.

With a quick motion the scout caught up the dagger, looked at the heavy handle, which had been so deceptive, 246and then began to untwist what at first sight appeared to be a roll of paper. He saw that it really was not paper, but the fine inner, fibrous bark of a tree. Letters were traced on it with the leaden end of a bullet or cartridge. The writing was in Spanish, but he was able to read it:

“My name is Leon Ruiz. I have been made suddenly a prisoner. Where I am I do not know, but my prison is a large adobe house, on a hill, and mountains are all around me. Whoever finds this——”

The message broke off abruptly.

Buffalo Bill read it over and over again, as if he could not convince himself that he read aright.

It was in the highest degree mystifying.

In the first place, it gave the name of the writer as Leon Ruiz, who was the Moorishlike proprietor of the Porfiero Hacienda, and who, after welcoming Buffalo Bill, had disappeared so strangely, instead of returning to take supper with him.

In the second place, Ruiz had apparently returned to the hacienda in the night, or certainly after the supper hour, for it was after supper that Buffalo Bill had the second time seen the dagger of gold among the ore specimens on the hanging shelves.

If Ruiz had so returned—and it seemed he must have done so, or he could not have gained possession of the dagger—why had he not made his presence known?

The answer to that might be, the scout suspected, that Ruiz and Periguez were enemies. If that were 247true, Ruiz might have fled from the hacienda to escape sudden vengeance, and might have returned in the darkness to get certain articles, taking among other things this dagger, yet had been afraid to try to see the scout.

According to the writing, he was now a prisoner in a big adobe building located on a certain hill, with mountains surrounding it.

Buffalo Bill was fairly familiar with that portion of New Mexico, and he remembered that the only large adobe building answering to that description, of which he had knowledge, was the Perditas Hacienda, on a high hill near the Perditas River.

That hacienda was mountain girt, but it was distant a number of miles from the Porfiero Hacienda, so distant that hard riding would have been required to convey Ruiz to it in the time that had elapsed. Yet it could have been done.

“But if he is a prisoner where he says he is, how did the dagger get here?” the scout asked, looking up as if questioning the air from which apparently it had come. “And why did Ruiz not finish his letter?”

Though the letters scrawled on the back with the end of a bullet were large, there was yet enough space remaining on the bark to have written several words more. There was no apparent reason why the message should have been left unfinished.

The more the scout thought of it, the more puzzled he grew. Finally he replaced the letter in the handle of the dagger, for safe-keeping, and, after an examination 248of the hidden spring, now to be seen, he closed the handle.

It shut with a sharp click, and after it had been closed it seemed perfectly solid, with nothing to show that it was hollow. And its weight added to that appearance of solidity.

“Those old Spaniards, or Moors, or whoever made this dagger, were experts at their trade,” was the scout’s thought, and then he turned to the body of Ramon Periguez, which still lay just as it had fallen.

Wondering if there could be anything in the dead man’s pockets that would throw any light on this mystery, or perhaps the singular disappearance of Prince Mogador, Buffalo Bill put his hand into the inner pocket of the man’s jacket.

Periguez had been his enemy—had sought his life and Periguez’s scoundrelly companions, the scout believed, were somewhere near. Therefore, Buffalo Bill felt justified in securing even in this way any information he could.

As he thus stooped over the body of Periguez, a rifle cracked some distance away, and the scout dropped downward with a limp motion, falling across the body of the dead man.

Three men in Mexican costume sprang out of some bushes at the point from which the rifle had been fired, and came running toward the fallen scout.

One of them was the servant who, dressed in white, had waited at the supper table the previous evening at the Porfiero Hacienda. This rascal carried a rifle 249from which smoke still curled, and it was plain that he had fired the murderous shot.

“He is dead!” said this man, as they reached the scout.

To all appearance he was right in his conjecture, for Buffalo Bill lay in a limp heap upon Periguez’s body. Yet his right hand still clutched the dagger.

“Shot him in the head! See? There flows the blood!”

Blood trickled down over the scout’s face, and there was a bullet hole in his hat.

One of the other men saw the dagger of gold, and greeted the sight with an exclamation of astonishment.

“See?” he fairly screeched. He held up the dagger. “See? The dagger of Leon Ruiz!”

They looked at it, with many ejaculations.

“The very dagger, taken by this American robber from the hacienda. And with it he killed Ramon Periguez.”

“Aye, it is so! He stole the dagger from the hacienda, and killed Periguez with it!”

“Aye! But he is dead now. Señor Gomez, your eye was true and your bullet a good one. You sent his cowardly soul to the pit in a quick way, and may it burn there forever!”

But at this juncture Buffalo Bill began to stir.

Though it had hurled him into sudden and complete unconsciousness, the bullet from the rifle of Gomez had merely scraped along his skull, cut the skin open, and produced a free flow of blood, yet had made no more than a superficial wound. It was the 250concussion which had dropped the scout in a senseless heap across the body.

“The rascal still lives!” Gomez ejaculated, and, bending over to look, he lifted the gold dagger as if he thought of driving it to the scout’s heart in order to finish him.

Buffalo Bill’s eyes fluttered open, but closed again, for consciousness was but returning.

“Ah, he is rousing!” said another of the three men. “We will question him about this murder, if he comes back to life for a while.”

“He may not be mortally hurt,” said the third man.

“If he is not,” said the other, “I have here a medicine that will finish him!”

He touched significantly the protruding handle of his knife.

Gomez was still bending above the scout, watching his struggling return from the land of insensibility.

“Manuel,” he said, without looking round, “bring the lariat from my horse, that we may bind this devil. He is not so badly hurt, mayhap. We will tie him.”

Manuel started off at a run. When he came back he was riding one horse and leading two others. He approached at a gallop, drew up with a thunder of hoofs, and leaped down with a spectacular flourish, swinging the lariat he had procured. Evidently Manuel was a rascal of theatrical tendencies. He threw the lariat to Gomez, who, with deft loopings and turns, together with some quickly made knots, soon had the scout bound hand and foot.

251“Help me to turn him,” he said, “and we will pass the lariat round his body and arms.”

“He will think the foul fiend has him sure enough,” declared one of the men with a laugh, as the rope was wrapped round and round the scout’s body.

CHAPTER XXXIV. FACING DEATH.

When Buffalo Bill regained consciousness, he found himself a bound prisoner, with three men, whose dress proclaimed them Mexicans, standing guard over him. One of them held in his hand the dagger of gold, and the scout, looking closely at this man’s face, saw that he was the servant who had waited upon him at the table the evening before at the Porfiero Hacienda.

“Ho! You have come back to life, señor!” said this man, called by his companions Gomez. “We took the liberty of tying you, so that when you awoke you could not harm yourself.”

He sat down on a stone before the scout, and behind him crouched his comrades.

Buffalo Bill saw that they were armed to the teeth, and he knew by the way the lariat felt, as its folds girt his body about, that the work of tying him had been well done. Men of this class were usually as much masters of ropes and knots as seamen.

“Fortunate for you, señor, that my aim was not good; my bullet barely scratched your skull, while I aimed to send it through your head. The distance was great, or I had done better. But the respite gives you a chance to talk, and we will listen to anything you desire to say.”

“I have nothing to say,” was the reply.

“Over there is the body of Ramon Periguez. You 253can see it if you will but turn your head. You slew him.”

Buffalo Bill did not answer.

“You slew him with this dagger, which you stole last night from the Porfiero Hacienda. Is it not true, señor?”

Gomez held up the dagger.

The scout not only did not reply, but he hardly heard the words. He was trying to consider his situation. He felt sure he could expect no mercy from these men. They had bound him, and sooner or later they would murder him, if not prevented. Gomez admitted he had aimed the rifle with the intention of dealing a death wound.

Buffalo Bill found difficulty in clear thinking. Though he had recovered consciousness, his ideas were strangely confused. One does not get over a knock-down blow like that which the bullet delivered, in a few minutes, and without difficulty, pain or trouble, or haziness of ideas.

One thing was clear: While these men watched him he could not escape from his bonds, and he might not be able to escape, even if they should leave him to himself.

“I must try to fight for time,” was his conclusion. “Time means everything. I must be subservient, and not anger them. They may want to take me before some leader, and that will mean delay. If they decide to finish me here, I have no chance.”

Gomez spoke the second time, holding up the dagger, 254before Buffalo Bill really heard and comprehended his question.

“I did not kill him!” the scout now declared.

The denial was greeted with cries of disbelief.

“The señor has the tongue of a serpent, as the Indians say,” Gomez observed. “But it will do him no good to deny that he killed Ramon Periguez. We found him here, bending over the body, with this dagger in one hand and his other hand thrust into the pocket of the dead man’s jacket. It angered us, for even at a distance we recognized the clothing worn by Periguez. It was then that I fired my bullet.”

“I did not expect you to believe me.”

“That is because the señor is not a fool. It is a lie so palpable that he could not expect us to think it the truth. We saw you bending over the body, and in your hand this dagger; it was in your hand still when we reached you. And Periguez had been dead so short a while that his body was warm and limp. The señor does not deny that?”

“That is true enough, but I did not kill him.”

“He died of heart failure, eh? After you struck him with the dagger!”

The rascals laughed at this.

“You will not believe me, if I tell just how it came about.”

“We are listening for the señor’s confession.”

“The dagger dropped down from the sky and slew him.”

Then they laughed uproariously.

“The señor is merry in the face of death!” said 255Gomez. “I presume he will tell us that the horse he stole from the hacienda stable and rode to this point brought him through the air without ever touching hoof to the ground? Mahomet had a wondrous horse called Alborak that carried him in such fashion. The American scout is no doubt greater than Mahomet!”

The villains laughed again at what they conceived the wit of Gomez.

“I knew you would not believe it,” said the scout.

“The señor denies that he killed Ramon Periguez, and that he stole the dagger from the hacienda?”

“Yes.”

“Then it is useless to talk with him.”

“Why did you and Periguez follow me?” the scout asked.

“We wished to look in your kind face again,” said Gomez.

“Periguez tried to poison my wine at the supper table, and he smuggled himself and some assassins into my room to slay me, after the poisoning attempt had failed. I escaped by the window, and was pursued and shot at, and you and he followed me even to this place. Why?”

“Had the señor forgotten the Moroccan prince?” said Gomez, with an uplifting of his black eyebrows and a shrugging of his shoulders. “That is the answer. The señor may ponder over it in the few minutes that are yet left to him.”

“You mean to kill me?”

“Horse thieves and murderers are hanged in this country. It is the unwritten law of the land. We 256shall but deal out justice to the señor. His head was too hard for any bullet; but I doubt if his neck is too strong to break under the jerk of the rope. As to that, we shall see. The señor may console himself by reflecting that the method is quick and must be well-nigh painless. I have even been told that men who have been hanged, yet who were not killed by the hanging, have declared that they saw enchanting visions while they danced on nothing at the lariat’s end. May the señor’s dying visions be filled with ravishing delights.”

Gomez, as well as the rascals who heard him, must have fancied himself a clever wit.

One of the horses was brought up, and to its back the scout was lifted. There he was lashed to the saddle with another lariat, in a most uncomfortable position. When the horse was led forward the motion gave him excruciating pain.

Yet no lamenting moan, no word of complaint, came from the lips of the heroic scout. And dark as was his outlook, he did not permit himself to despair; not because he believed there was a chance of escape, but only for the reason that throughout his life of marvelous adventure he had always acted on that principle. Hope was a quality so buoyant that he could not afford to let it slip out of his heart even though death stared him in the face.

The scout’s horse, which Gomez and his villains had seen before the scout was fired upon, was now secured. Then the scout was conducted down by the high cliff wall, to where a tree offered its wide-spreading 257branches for the rope’s end. Under the tree the scout was lifted from the back of the horse and a lariat was prepared quickly as a hangman’s noose.

“If the señor has any messages to send to his friends we will hear them,” said Gomez, standing before him with a mocking smile. “We can communicate them to his wonderfully winged horse and instruct that sagacious and marvelous beast to fly straight to his friends with them. Now is the señor’s time to speak. In another minute he will be beyond speaking, or the need of it.”

The end of the long lariat was thrown over the low limb of the tree, and two of the rascals pulled it down, fastening it temporarily to the tree trunk.

Then Buffalo Bill, still bound and as helpless as a log, was lifted to his feet and placed beneath the tree, the noose of the rope being drawn around his neck and pulled tight.

Seizing the other end of the rope and removing it from around the body of the tree, the three rascals began to haul upon it.

The noose clutched round the scout’s neck with a jerk, and he was dragged from his feet.

“We have friends in Satan’s kingdom, señor!” Gomez shouted. “When you meet them give them our kind regards.”

They swung down on the rope again, and the scout’s body was hoisted between the earth and the sky.

CHAPTER XXXV. ENOS SPALDING.

A revolver cracked in the thick boughs of the scrubby oak above the heads of the men who were thus bent on murdering Buffalo Bill, and Gomez fell back with a cry, clutching frantically at his breast.

Before he struck the ground the revolver cracked again, and another of the three men fell. The third dropped the rope and turned to run.

Buffalo Bill’s feet struck the ground with a thump as the lariat was thus released, and then he toppled over, falling as heavily as either of the two men who had been dropped by the revolver.

A third time the revolver cracked, and the rascal who was running uttered a cry, but sped on, moving his heels with marvelous speed.

A chuckling laugh sounded in the top of the oak. Then there was a rustling of the thick branches, a scraping sound, and a few moments later a pair of long legs came sliding down the trunk of the tree, followed by a long, lank, muscular body, and then by a small head that was covered by a shock of coarse hair and a huge flapping hat.

When this queer figure struck the ground with its big feet and then straightened up, a tall, slim man was revealed, a man of elderly aspect, whose shrewd face was twisting with excitement and whose blue eyes snapped and burned. He wore a billy-goat beard, and 259his whole appearance stamped him unmistakably as a “down-East Reub.”

So tall was he that he seemed to have squeezed himself into the clothing of a boy, the sleeves and the tail of his coat and the legs of his trousers were so short. The short sleeves revealed a pair of red, bony wrists, while the stump legs of the trousers showed a vista of bright-red stockings of coarse yarn. The shoes were big and hobnailed.

“By chaowder!” he grunted, “I reckon I didn’t do that shooting none too soon. I hate tew pull a deadly weepon on any human critter, but ’twan’t never in the Spalding blood to allaow what ain’t a square deal ’tween man and man. And this feller was an American, whilst t’others was yaller Mexicans, and that’s got tew be caounted in, by gum! An American has got tew stand up fer another American every time. But, I vum! I dunno but I was too slow, fer seems ter me he’s stun-dead. One of them Mexicans is still kickin’, and he’s got a gun, tew! I’ll jes have tew relieve him of that, fust thing.”

The wounded man lay on his back, glaring at the Yankee. He had been shot in the shoulder. It was a stunning sort of wound, which had knocked him out temporarily, though he was probably not fatally injured. But the other man was dead, and that man was Gomez.

Running his long fingers over the clothing of the wounded man, the Yankee deftly extracted a murderous knife and a revolver.

260“I reckon yeou’re a reg’lar walkin’ ars’nel! What else ye got on ye, in the way of weepons?”

He found nothing else, but from one of the pockets he brought up a slip of paper written in Spanish.

The Yankee stared at it, and then deliberately bringing from his pocket a pair of heavy spectacles he set them on his nose and tried to read the writing.

“Them hen tracks is tew much fer me!” he admitted, as he tucked the paper away for future reference.

When he had satisfied himself that the wounded man was now weaponless, he turned his attention to Buffalo Bill, who was again unconscious, because the noose cut so sharply into his neck. The Yankee loosened and cast off the noose.

“Looks like I was a bit tew slow with that shootin’!” he said. “I hesitated tew long, I reckon. But I didn’t want tew do anything unless I seen I jes’ had to. I ain’t got any stummick fer killin’ men, even if they aire Mexicans and aire deserving of death.”

He began to work the scout’s arms up and down, and then, bending over, he blew into his face.

“If I had any worter!” As he spoke he noticed Buffalo Bill’s flask lying on the ground, with his field glasses, which the scoundrels had appropriated. He picked up the flask, opened it, and took a sniff.

“Whisky, by heck! And they tuck it frum him. I vum, ef this critter ain’t a drinkin’ man, and he looked tew me like a plum’ straightforward critter! Looks is deceivin’.”

He not only sniffed the whisky, but tasted it.

“Fiery as all git-aout, by gosh! Wonder what the 261Temperance Society daown at Spalding’s Corners would say ef they should see me tastin’ and handlin’ the vile stuff? They’d call me a backslider, by heck! But I ain’t goin’ tew use it on myself, and I reckon it’s use is allowable, anyhow, as a medicine. Waal, here goes!”

He pried the jaws of the scout apart, and poured some of the whisky down his throat.

“Makes ye choke, does it? Waal, that’s a sign yeou’re livin’, anyhaow.”

Again he began to move the arms up and down and breathe into the scout’s face and nostrils.

The color returned to the pallid features, the breathing strengthened, and the scout was again on the road to consciousness.

The Yankee inspected the cut made by the bullet in the scout’s head.

“That bullet come darn near gittin’ ye, didn’t it? I reckon yeou’re born tew be draowned in the sea; fer bullets and ropes don’t finish ye. Ef a man’s born tew be draowned he can’t be killed by hangin’.”

When Buffalo Bill opened his eyes he saw the thin face of the Yankee close by his own, and heard the Yankee’s harsh yet kindly voice:

“Comin’ raound, be ye? Waal, yeou’ve been a tarnal long time doin’ it. And every minute we stay here is a resk. One man got away, and it’s my opinion others like him aire raound here a-plenty. He’ll find ’em, and come back.” He heard a sound, and glanced around. “Hello! That critter over there’s movin’!”

The wounded Mexican was trying to crawl to the 262body of Gomez, to get the revolver which the Yankee had not removed. The Yankee swung around and cocked his own weapon.

“Don’t dew it!” he warned. “I’ve killed one man a’ready, and I don’t want tew haf to kill another.”

The Mexican dropped limply back upon the grass.

“That’s right, jes’ lay there, will ye! And don’t tempt me tew shoot ye. I don’t want to.”

He turned again to Buffalo Bill, but glanced now and then at the wounded Mexican.

“I should like to know your name,” said the scout, “you have saved my life.”

“Me? Waal, call me Enos Spalding, and you’ll git clost to it. It was jes luck I was up that tree. Feelin’ better, ain’t ye?”

“I think so, very much better.”

“Take another swig o’ this devil’s fire. I don’t believe in whisky, except as a medicine. It su’prised me tew find yeou had been kerryin’ this flask. But it come in paowerful handy.”

“Yes, that’s why I carried it.”

“Yeou expected to be shot and hung, and tew have need of it?”

“In this wild land one never knows when he may have need for a stimulant.”

“That’s right, I reckon, jedgin’ by what I seen to-day. I don’t reckon yeou could set on a hoss, could ye?”

Buffalo Bill tried to lift himself. His head felt dizzy, and a blackness swam before his eyes when he raised his head.

263“Yes, I can sit on a horse,” he said courageously.

“I ain’t wantin’ tew hurry ye any, but one o’ them devils got away, and I reckon there’s more of his kind raound here. He may come back with ’em. So, the sooner we git tew movin’ the better.”

“You’re right,” said the scout. “Just help me a little.”

“When they skun aout they left their hosses. Your’n is here, tew, I think. It’s lucky fer both of us; we can have two hosses apiece, and I didn’t have even one. Mine got away frum me yistidday, and I’ve been hossless and afoot ever sense. Jes lay back a minute while I bring ’em up.”

Buffalo Bill lay back on the grass, weak and exhausted, and the Yankee hastened to get the horses. Then he removed Gomez’s jacket and hung it in the tree so that it could be seen.

“That will bring ’em to help this critter that’s wounded,” he explained, and as he helped the scout to the saddle he began to tell his story, without having been asked to do so.

“As I said, my name is Enos Spalding. I’m frum Varmount, which, as ye know, is a good ways frum this place; and it’s a better country than this land of sand and cactus, ef I do say it.

“Waal, I come down here on a sing’lar mission. I’ve got a niece, Irene Nelson, that is a master hand at singin’. She kin sing jes as easy as a bird kin warble, and a good deal sweeter than any bird I ever heerd open its mouth. She’s been ejicated in singin’ abroad, 264over in France and Italy. That was all foolishness, I tole her, and jes a waste o’ money, fer ef a body is a natural singer there ain’t no sense, as I can see, in goin’ across the ocean to practice yer voice. We’ve got singin’ teachers right here in Ameriky. There was Tod Bunnell, used tew come raound to Spalding’s Corners every winter and give singin’-skewl lessons, and he could ’a’ teached her jes as well as them teachers over in Paris, what charged sech all-fired prices fer it. That’s what I tole her, but she couldn’t see it the same way as I did.

“Waal, when she couldn’t, and was baound and determined to be a singer, I give her the money, though it did cramp me a putty consid’able tew do it. I paid her way while she was over there with them high-notion singin’ teachers.

“I dunno whether she sung any better after that than before, but p’r’aps she did, fer they tuck her up in them foreign cities, and she begun tew sing in operys. She sent me clippings aout of the newspapers over there that told abaout her, but most of it was in sech all-fired queer langwidges that me ner nobody at Spalding’s Corners could make head ner tail aout of it. If’t hadn’t been fer her letters explainin’, we wouldn’t knowed what it was all abaout.

“But there was some English papers, that she sent from London and Manchester, and other taowns in England, and they did praise her right up tew the mark, I tell yew. So, I reckoned mebbe I hadn’t been sech a fool, arter all, when I furnished the money fer her musical ejication. Though at the time every 265critter in Spalding’s Corners said that I was the dummedest fool that ever went on two legs.”

Having lifted the scout to the saddle, the Yankee steadied him until he could put his feet in the big Mexican stirrups. When mounted, the scout could ride even when he had not strength to walk.

Spalding tied one of the horses by a lariat to the scout’s saddle and one to his own, the other he mounted.

“We’ll make fer a notch I seen over there yistidday,” he said. “I don’t know ef any enemies aire layin’ round er not; but it’s healthier to think they be, and tew keep aout of the way of ’em. It looks like a sin tew leave that wounded critter here, but there ain’t no help fer it. I reckon he’ll pull through somehaow; I’ll hope so. His friends will be putty cert’in tew see that jacket flappin’ in the wind.”

He started the horses.

“I was tellin’ ye about my niece, but I didn’t git through. Waal, arter she’d sung in England and in Europe, she went to Australy and sung there. She sent me some o’ the Melbourne and Sydney papers. Then she sot aout fer home, comin’ across the Pacific, and stoppin’ at the Sandwich Islands. She sung in Californy a few times, and then, havin’ promised to visit with a young woman daown in this section, what was a ranchman’s daughter, she started aout fer the ranch.

“Ye see, she and this young woman had been in skewl together, when they was gals. My niece’s 266friend’s mother married a cattleman, named Fernald, and moved daown here. And that’s haow ’twas.

“You’ll think I’m a long time gittin’ tew it, but naow comes the queerest part, and the reason fer my bein’ here. She’s disappeared. I’ve been to that ranch haouse, and I’ve been everywhere, and I can’t find hoof ner hair of her, tew show what’s happened.

“Three days ago I struck across in this direction, hossback, intendin’ to hit the trail frum San Paz, some’eres below these maountains. I got lost. Then my hoss got away. All day yistidday I walked and walked. Seemed like I’d never git raound these maountain walls. This mornin’ I come over in this direction, fer I thought I seen a hoss, and it might be mine, but I didn’t find it.

“Then I seen Mexicans ridin’, and I’d heerd so much abaout road agents, and Mexicans, and cattle like that, I jes hid in that tree.

“Waal, tew make a long story short, I was in there when them three fellers brought ye there intendin’ tew hang ye. When I seen that they meant bisness, I jes had to chip in.

“That’s all, except that I ain’t found ary trace of my niece or Miss Fernald, and it begins ter look as ef I ain’t goin’ tew. But mebbe I was sent here tew give yeou that lift. I dunno. Things works queer at times. Ef this was a lawabidin’ country I allaow I’d be arrested for killin’ that Mexican; but sheriffs to arrest a man aire about as skurse here, I cal’late, as hen’s teeth. Waal, that’s my story, anyhaow.”

267Spalding looked at the scout with inquiring interest.

“I’ll hear yours, when yeou’re better able tew tell it. It’ll keep, I guess. Ef you can stand faster ridin’ we’ll move the legs of these hosses a little. The furder I git frum that dead and wownded Mexican the better I’ll be feelin’.”

They rode on, seeking lower ground, leaving the tree which had witnessed the tragedy quickly behind.

CHAPTER XXXVI. HEMMED IN.

Under the direction of Buffalo Bill, a hiding place was found at length in a notch of the hills, and in it the scout and the Yankee sought refuge. Buffalo Bill would not have stopped in the notch but for the fact of his extreme physical weakness. He needed time in which to recuperate.

In addition to the wide opening in front, which was screened by scrubby bushes and tall cactus, there was a narrow pass leading to the rear, and the sides of the ravine were jagged and notched, so that, if closed in on from both ends of the ravine, there would still be a good chance to escape.

Before this two of the horses had been abandoned, on Buffalo Bill’s advice, as he thought they were likely to be an encumbrance.

The releasing of these horses, really good animals, and their loss with their accouterments, was a sore grief to the close-fisted Yankee.

“It sorter seems like throwing away money,” he said, as the horses were left behind, and, with a backward look, he saw them browsing by the trail. “I was allus taught never to throw anything away, never to let go of anything that might be used, and never to be wasteful. The one what does them things, I was allus told, will never git rich. It seems a sin and shame to let ’em go. They’d fetch good money, if we had ’em at any market.”

269Buffalo Bill smiled at the covetous Yankee’s observation.

“We’ll be better off without them. Yet, if you choose to take them yourself, and are not going far with me, it’s not my place to object to your doing what you please with them. But I know that my movements would be only hampered by them. They’re good horses; but I’m willing that the Mexicans, to whom they belong, shall have them.”

“Waal, I’ve got a fine critter under me, in place of the one I lost,” was Spalding’s consoling answer.

When they had stowed themselves securely in their retreat, the Yankee brought forth the writing in Spanish he had taken from the pocket of one of the Mexicans, explaining at the same time where he had obtained it.

Buffalo Bill glanced at the paper and his eyes brightened when they took in the writing, which was as follows:

“The American scout must be killed. It will never do for him to find Prince Mogador. Do not hesitate to slay him as if he were but a wolf. Everything depends on it. When you have succeeded, ride at once to San Paz Hacienda.

The signature of Leon Ruiz was what caught the eye of the scout quite as much as the nature of the contents. It was the signature attached, also, to the mysterious note which had been in the handle of the dagger. It seemed to him that the handwriting was the same, too; but as he had not possession of the other 270note he could not be sure of this. He had replaced that note in the handle of the dagger, and there it had been when he was shot down and the dagger was taken from him.

Whether the men who now had the dagger knew of that receptacle in the handle he could not tell, of course. He hoped they did not, and that knowledge of it would be kept from them.

This new note made him anxious to start on for San Paz Hacienda.

It was the only place which answered to the description given in the dagger note as that of the prison of the writer, and this second note hinted that Prince Mogador was held there.

The first note had been written with the end of a bullet or cartridge, which tended to prove that the writer was a prisoner, not in possession of pencil or pen, and the material on which it had been written showed the same thing. The note produced by the Yankee was written on ordinary paper, with a lead pencil.

“What’s it say?” asked the Yankee. He had doubled his long frame up like a jackknife, and, with his arms on his sharp knees, he had rested his chin on them, and was thus looking curiously at the scout. “It looks like hen tracks tew me.”

Buffalo Bill translated it for him.

“I want tew know!” he exclaimed. “Where is this San Paz Hacienda?”

Buffalo Bill told him.

“I ain’t heerd your story yit, yeou know. You recollect 271I said I’d wait till yeou was better able tew tell it. I cal’late it may be int’restin’.”

“I’m sure I can trust you.”

“Yeou’ll hev to, I guess, ef yeou tell it, though trustin’ is mighty pore bizness. Trustin’ come nigh to bustin’ me onct, up in Varmount; trustin’ goods aout of my store, I mean. Ef I had all the money owin’ tew me by the farmers raound Spalding’s Corners I’d be a sight richer’n I am to-day.”

“I think I can trust you, I’m sure of it. You risked your life to save mine, and that’s all the credentials I want, to show me that you’re a man whose heart is in the right place. I’ll tell you my story.”

This Cody did, giving Enos Spalding a clear idea of why he was in that section, and what he had discovered since coming into it.

“I want tew know!” said Spalding, who throughout the telling had sat with his mouth dropped open, like the mouth of a fish out of water. “I reckon that yeou and me aire both on a huntin’ trip daown this way—yeou huntin’ fur this furrin prince and me huntin’ fur my niece! An’ so yeou know Miss Fernald, tew! It’s a curious coincidence, I may say, and it would be funnier than time ef we should find that aour steps p’inted in the same direction.

“It begins tew look tew me as if there’s a good deal of abductin’ goin’ on daown here. That is, jedgin’ by what you think. You don’t believe this furrin’ prince is dead, and I ain’t willin’ tew believe that my niece is dead. Suppose we splice teams and hunt together? I’m not much good at it myself, but I mightn’t be sech 272bad shakes, ef I had yeou to lead. I’d try to do my part.”

His long, lank face looked at the scout solemnly, but in his blue eyes there was a fire which showed that he had a good deal of courage and spirit.

“If I could, I should be glad to help you in this matter of your niece,” said the scout, wondering how Emily Fernald could have met with dangers and difficulties again, so soon after being taken home by Lieutenant Butler. “As soon as I’m able I shall go on to the Hacienda of San Paz. The letter in that dagger handle described the San Paz Hacienda, and this note in Spanish, signed also by Leon Ruiz, directs his men to ride there as soon as they have finished me.”

The Yankee’s face broke into a dry smile.

“Ef they dew that, I reckon yeou won’t be goin’ to this hacienda, unless they kerry yer body there on their hosses.” His face sobered again. “But ef yeou do go there, I’m guessin’ yeou’ll be runnin’ into whole heaps of danger and trouble. If them men what aire trying to git ye here find yeou raound that haciender they’ll try tew kill ye there. I allaow ’twon’t be healthy fer either of us in that vercinity, sense I laid aout that Mexican and wounded the other one. They’d be wantin’ my hair abaout as bad as they do yourn.”

“That’s true, too,” said the scout. “If those men happen to meet you they’ll try to punish you for what you did. But you’re a man of courage. I’ve seen that. And you can shoot a revolver.”

The Yankee grinned solemnly. “My courage was kinder of the shakin’ order, when I popped intew ’em 273frum that tree,” he admitted. “Ef it hadn’t been a needcessity I’d never done it. But when a lot o’ heathen Mexicans tries tew hang an American citerzen, then I’m under obligations as an American tew chip in and help him all I kin. ’Twouldn’t be becomin’ in an American not to.

“And,” he added, “I learnt haow to shoot a pistol when I was constable up in aour taown, a good many years ago, and I ain’t furgot it. I used to practice pistol shootin’ reg’lar, aout behind the woodhouse, in them days. Zenas Dane was a leetle better shot than me, but sometimes I even beat Zenas. I’ve noticed that when a man learns anything, whether it’s pistol shootin’ er something else, he never fergits it intirely. But my hand was shakin’ a putty considdable when I pulled daown on them Mexicans. Otherwise, I allaow I’d ’a’ got the third man, tew.”

“As I said, I’m going to ride to San Paz Hacienda, as soon as I feel strong enough to undertake the journey. If you will accompany me, I shall be glad to have you do so,” replied Cody. “If your niece and Emily Fernald are held prisoners down here anywhere, we might possibly get some information there; no one can tell. Of course, it seems the merest chance.”

“I’ll go ’long with yeou,” said the Yankee, his face brightening. “One place is as good as another, so long’s I don’t know no more than I dew now. Yeou’ll cut aout before dark?”

“Perhaps so.”

Thus they talked, discussing their plans and their situation.

274Buffalo Bill began to feel much better, and was trying to get some sleep, when the Yankee aroused him.

“I swan tew man, somebuddy’s comin’ this way!” he whispered.

Buffalo Bill was wide awake and alert instantly. Then he discovered that some of the men the Yankee called Mexicans were already in the little pocket and were making a search through it.

“Gosh all hemlock!” whispered the Yankee excitedly. “They struck them hosses, and naow they’ll find us! It’s fight, I cal’late.”

So saying, he drew his revolver.

“Don’t fire, don’t be hasty!” Buffalo Bill caught his arm. “Just slide back here behind these bushes; there’s a hole that will hide us.”

“They’ll trap us in there!” said Enos, but he obeyed the scout, nevertheless, and slid back into the hole.

The Mexicans had found the two horses, and they were talking of their discovery in such high whispers that the words reached the men in concealment.

“What they sayin’?” the Yankee demanded.

“They think that we’re near, or the horses wouldn’t be where they are.”

“Good guessin’! There’ll be some fightin’, ef they nose us aout.”

He lay flat behind the bushes, clutching his revolver, his breath coming heavily.

The hole in which he and the scout sprawled was dark, and bushes were thick around it.

“They may find our tracks, if they’re experienced 275men,” whispered the scout. “If they do we’re in for trouble.”

“Let it come!” said the Yankee, his eyes beginning to blaze. “We’ll fight the hull of ’em.”

They heard the Mexicans beating about in the bushes, and caught sight of one of them as he walked through the lower ground, not a dozen yards off.

Closer and closer drew the searchers.

Suddenly the bushes in front of the hole were shaken. Then they were drawn aside, and a dark face peered in. The face paled to a sickly tallow color when the man saw that he was looking into the muzzle of a revolver. Before he could draw back, the scout had caught him by the leg, thrown him down, and jerked him back into the hole, and, with the scout’s revolver muzzle pressed against his breast, he feared to cry out.

“Too much curiosity often gets men into trouble,” Buffalo Bill said in Spanish. “Cry out, and you’re a dead man!”

The threat was sufficient; the man made no sound, but lay trembling, with a piteous appeal for mercy in his face.

“How many men are out there?” the scout whispered.

“More than a dozen, señor.”

“They think we are in here?”

“Si, señor.”

“Watch him,” said the scout, speaking in Spanish for the man’s benefit, “and if he so much as moves, shoot him dead.”

276Cody repeated it to the Yankee in English.

“By gosh! I’d jes’ like to send a bullet rippin’ through him!” the Yankee whispered. To show that he meant “business,” he sat on the Mexican’s arm, and pressed the muzzle of the big revolver against the prisoner’s breast. “Ef yeou so much as wink an eye yeou git this bullet!” he threatened.

Buffalo Bill crawled along and tried to see out.

The other men were not far off.

After hunting round and round a while they began to call to their missing comrade.

“Nuncio!” they yelled.

“What has become of that villain Nuncio?” one of them was heard to ask a little later.

“Hast looked behind those bushes, Perez?” said another.

Perez was heard coming up the slope. He parted the bushes, saw the face and the revolver of Buffalo Bill, and, with a cry, threw himself backward before the scout could catch him. His yell as he rolled down warned his comrades; the next minute he was telling them of his discovery.

A crackling fire of revolvers followed instantly, and the bullets came through the bushes. Nuncio uttered a groan. One of them had struck him in the breast.

“Down!” said the scout to the Yankee.

“Come out of there, you American dogs!” was the shouted command from below.

Buffalo Bill answered, in Spanish, without exposing himself:

“We have captured your friend Nuncio, and have 277him here, and we are using him as our shield. Already you have wounded him. If you fire on us again you are likely to kill him. We will not surrender, and if you try to take us it will but result in the death of your friend.”

The men were heard to retreat, and then there sounded, farther off, the hum of their voices. One of them came back and shouted:

“We do not believe you. If you have Nuncio, let him speak.”

Buffalo Bill pointed his revolver at the head of the suffering man.

“Answer them!” he commanded. “Tell them they shot you, without harming us, and that if they fire again they’re likely to kill you.”

Nuncio answered, coughing out the words, for he was in great distress.

“If you love me, do not fire again!” he begged. “Already I am badly wounded.”

Again the hum of voices was heard.

“Surrender, for you cannot escape,” said the spokesman. “We have you corralled. We will treat you well, if you surrender without giving us trouble.”

“We do not trust you,” said Buffalo Bill, “and we refuse to surrender; and, if you crowd us, we will kill your friend.”

“We will starve you out!” was shouted back. “You cannot get away, and we will starve you out.”

CHAPTER XXXVII. AT THE SAN PAZ HACIENDA.

The day had passed and night had come. Buffalo Bill and the Yankee were still cooped up in their hiding place.

Throughout the long hours of the afternoon the men who had them hemmed in had called to them from time to time, demanding their surrender. Always they had given the same answer, or its substance.

Several times, in reply to the demands of his friends, and coerced by the scout’s threats, Nuncio had spoken. Always he had begged his friends not to fire again, and they had so far obeyed. But Nuncio was past speaking now, though as yet the watchers below did not know it; his death was but a matter of a short time.

Buffalo Bill had questioned him about the San Paz Hacienda, but the fellow knew nothing, or, at least, claimed that he did not. And he claimed, likewise, that he knew nothing of the present whereabouts of Leon Ruiz. The scout was not sure, however, but the rascal lied on these points. His manner in giving answers was not satisfactory. But now he was not able to speak or to understand.

“We’ve got to get out of this, Spalding,” said the scout, when darkness had come. “We can climb the cliff behind us. We can reach it by burrowing under those bushes off at the right.”

“They’ll shoot us while we’re doin’ it!”

279“We must take the risk. You saw the path which I think we’d better try. It’s steep, but we can do it.”

The scout was his old courageous self again. In spite of the excitement of the afternoon, the rest in that little notch had restored his strength.

“I dew hate to lose them hosses!” said Spalding, with genuine regret. “That will be the second pair of hosses we’ve had to give up this day. And hosses like them aire wuth two hundred apiece in any hoss market. I call that a burnin’ shame. And them bridles and saddles is wuth a heap, tew.”

“There’s no help for it.”

“What will we do with this pore critter?”

“His friends will find him, though perhaps he will be dead when they do. But we have the satisfaction of knowing it was not our lead that brought about his end.”

Buffalo Bill crawled over to the bushes he had indicated, and began to creep through them in the direction of the cliff he had marked in the afternoon. The Yankee came slowly after him.

Their departure from the notch was not discovered at once by the Mexicans below. But when they began to climb the cliff, which was steep and very difficult in the darkness, the Yankee slipped and came near falling. He was supported by the scout until he could regain his footing. The noise reached the ears of the watchers, who began to call and shout. Then a sputter of revolvers came from them, and the bullets raked and scraped over the face of the cliff.

“Come on!” Buffalo Bill whispered. “Don’t shoot 280back. They don’t know just where we are, and they can’t see us.”

“They’re shootin’ paowerful straight, though,” the Yankee grumbled. “One of their dummed bullets cut through my hat, and I’ll bet it’s ruined. Cost me three dollars in Los Angeles, that hat did. I don’t like tew have it cut up in that way. Hats cost money, by gum!”

“Keep still, and now come right after me. Hold tight. I’ll help you now and then, at the worst places.”

They climbed on.

The revolvers were still popping, and around and about them the bullets whistled and scraped. But that shot through the Yankee’s hat was as near as any of them came to the fugitives.

When they were still higher on the cliff they heard the Mexicans calling to Nuncio.

“They’ll go up and look fer him, I reckon, and then they’ll foller us!” said the Yankee.

“Likely. But the darkness is all in our favor, remember.”

“I’m hungrier’n all git aout!” the Yankee grumbled, when they gained the top of the cliff. “What’s yer plans naow?”

“We start now for San Paz Hacienda.”

They had not only reached the top of the cliff, but the rocky land lay now rather level before them. Even in the darkness so keen was the vision of Buffalo Bill that he had no trouble in going forward, directing the Yankee now and then by a word. Soon 281they were almost beyond hearing of the occasional pistol shots which sounded in the ravine.

The scout held steadily on his way over the uneven ground. This was a sort of plateau, lying on the top of one of the lower hills of the Superstition Range, and it took hours to cross it. When at last they gained its farther side, they found that the land dropped away into what seemed a dark ravine.

Having descended into this, the scout found what he believed to be a game trail, leading somewhat in the direction he wished now to go; and this they followed.

Throughout the night they continued their wearing travel, but they went into camp at the breaking of day, hiding again under cover of bushes.

Here Buffalo Bill killed a rabbit, bowling this one over with a stone, and he ventured to build a fire with which to cook it. No enemies were in sight, and it seemed safe to believe that the Mexicans who had so harassed them had been distanced during the night.

After a rest of two or three hours they pushed or again. It was midafternoon when they came in sight of the San Paz Hacienda, perched on the top of its hill, with mountains surrounding it.

“Naow, what aire we goin’ tew do?” asked the Yankee, dropping down to rest, for he confessed that he was pretty well tired out. “We don’t know what’s up there, except that I see some men that look tew me tew be guards.”

“They are guards,” said the scout, “and that indicates something.”

282“Indercates that the place is guarded, I reckon.”

“Yes, and if it’s guarded, there is a reason. Those men up there could fear no foes unless they were holding some one there and expected a pursuit. There are no Indians in this section, and I think no outlaws, except the rascals themselves.”

The Yankee stared up from his hiding place at the adobe structure on the hill. It resembled a Spanish castle in its outward appearance, though the walls were of adobe, or sun-dried bricks, instead of stone.

“A perfect Gibraltar, in some respects,” said the scout, when he had studied the house and the hill with his field glasses. “Unless one climbs those sheer walls on this side, which seem to hang above a sort of moat, there’s no way to get up there, save by the path which those sentries are closely watching.”

“Funny little towers on it!” said the Yankee.

Buffalo Bill looked at the towers—there was one on each of the four corners—and he showed a sudden increase of interest. His field glasses had revealed a handkerchief fluttering from the barred window of the tower right over the wall above the moat. He studied it closely. His strong glasses even brought into view the bars at that window.

“The prisoner is there!” he said. “See! It may be Leon Ruiz, and it may be some one else.” He gave the glasses to the Yankee. “Turn them on that tower above the white wall. You will see a handkerchief hanging from the bars of the window. Another thing you will observe is, that the window cannot be seen from the other side of the house; nor do I think 283it would be visible to any one standing directly below it. Off here it is in plain view. Does that suggest anything?”

“It might su’gest that whoever is in there may be tryin’ to signal abaout it.”

“It suggests to me that whoever is in that tower, knowing the signal cannot be seen readily from any point of the building nor from the ground below that wall, keeps that handkerchief flying from that window in the hope that it may be seen by some one in this direction; one would have to be in this direction to see it.”

“Yes, that’s so.”

“It’s only a guess that the prisoners are held there, but it’s so good a guess that I’m going to find out to-night.”

“Haow?”

“By climbing that sheer wall to the window.”

“I want tew know! ’Twon’t be easy tew do.”

“I shall try it. I’ve got to know who is in that tower. It may be Leon Ruiz. But I believe I have found the prison of Prince Mogador.”

“Gosh all Friday! I’m wishin’ we could find the prison of my niece! That is, ef she’s held anywhere, and ain’t dead. By gum! that might be her hankcher shakin’ there! Who knows that it ain’t?”

“No one knows. That’s what we must find out.”

“Yit I don’t see what any one would want to capter her fur, and hold her that way, anyhaow. She ain’t got no money to pay a ransom with, and I ain’t. I’ve spent more naow in this search than I kin afford tew. 284It’d be jes’ my luck tew find her in sech a place and have to come daown with a lot of hard cash tew git her aout. She’s cost me a mint o’ money already, by gum! I wonder ef she kin be in there?”

His voice and his hands trembled.

It was plain that no matter what the cost, nor how near the payment might come to breaking his old heart, he would pay whatever was demanded, if a demand was made, and the money could be raised by him. He might grumble, but he would not hesitate.

CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE PRISONER OF THE TOWER.

Using the immemorial privilege of a teller of tales, I ask the reader to turn back now and look with me into one of the tower rooms of the San Paz Hacienda.

It is not the room at whose barred window Buffalo Bill saw the flutter of that handkerchief, but is like it, except that the bars are broken, and a space in the window is open large enough to permit the passage of the body of a man.

Yet this is of no use to the pallid prisoner lying on his cot in a corner of the little room, for below that window are the jagged tops of trees, projecting sharply upward, ready to impale him like dagger points if he should venture to try to escape by leaping down. He believes he has reason on his side, when he thinks it is the wish of his jailers that he shall leap down upon those treetops and thus meet death.

Yet his jailers, cruel as they are, have not, so far, tried to take his life directly, though they have apparently sought to do so indirectly, for they have subjected him to tortures so inhuman they pass belief. His body is knotted and bent by reason of these tortures, and the intolerable torment of continuous pain is his portion. He groans now and then, covers his eyes with his hands, and wonders if the end his fiendish captors seem to wish is not near.

Yet he will do nothing to destroy his own life. He 286desires to live, and he feels that he has justification for this desire. His death would mean much to many people, besides his jailers.

Night comes, shadowing the little room by slow degrees, and then plunging it into darkness. Lying on his cot, his cheeks flushed and feverish, his brain gradually becoming bewildered, he yet listens to the sounds of the night—to the cry of birds, to the distant yelping of wolves in the mountains, the occasional ring of a rifle or musket as its butt is jarred against the earth by the hand of a sentry.

Feeling that his strength is failing, that his mind is leaving him, he begins at length to pray for death. He takes from beneath the thin pillow of his cot a dagger. It has a handle of gold, is ponderous, and its keen double edge would quickly let out his life. He holds it in his hand, which shakes under the suggestive temptation; he even lifts it to drive it into his bosom. But he does not. His hand drops against the tattered covering of the cot, and he groans aloud.

“I must live!” he moans. “Yet here I die! Die in this poisonous place, without friends, without help!”

The dagger slips from his fingers and he covers his face with his hands, while tears of weakness trickle down his cheeks. His sobs choke and stifle him.

“If I could but get word to them of what I suffer! If they could but know that I live—that I exist, for I do not live! But they will never know. I am buried in a place of which I have no knowledge; and how long I have been here I fail even to remember. For 287my mind is blank at times, and days and nights go without leaving any record on my miserable brain.”

There is a scratching sound at the window. He hears it, the sobbing and the tears cease, and he is alert.

“Is help at hand?” he whispers. “It cannot be!”

He is so weak that in trying to get out of the bed he almost falls to the floor, yet with caution he crawls toward the window.

Something is beating against it, on the outside.

The darkness is so great he cannot see what it is, but, creeping up to the window, he puts a hand through, and it touches a frightened bird, which flutters its wings and makes strange cries as he draws it into the room. He is bewildered. This was not what he expected.

He cannot see the bird, but it seems to be some kind of gull, or sea bird, and he thinks it has wandered from the sea, and, becoming bewildered, has struck in the darkness against the window ledge and injured itself.

Crawling over to the other side of the room, he finds a stub of candle on a box, and, with trembling fingers, he secures a match and gets a light. Then he sees the bird, to which he has clung. It is a sea bird, he is sure, and its head is bruised, showing that he judged truly in thinking it had struck in the darkness against the tower. It seems as sadly bewildered as he had been himself a little while before.

The bird is too weak to be released, it could not fly if he should toss it through the window, he fears, yet he knows that it will get strong. It has wings of 288broad expanse, and it must have been a powerful flyer in its normal condition.

He tears from his tattered coat a bit of thread, and ties the legs of the bird, lest in its weakened state it may flutter to the window and escape.

Having done that, he begins to pull with feverish eagerness at the coat, extracting thread after thread. These threads he separates by untwisting, and at length succeeds in getting a fine strong cord that he deems of suitable length for the purpose that has come to him.

Having done this, he crawls over to his cot, and brings to view again the dagger with the handle of gold. He tests its weight by swinging it up and down.

“Too heavy, I fear, yet I must try it!” he says, and he searches about the littered floor, which is covered with filthy straw, and from the straw he at length extracts a cartridge. It had slipped from the belt of a guard. He had noted its fall, but had thought nothing of it until now.

He has discovered that the interior of the hard mattress of his cot is composed of bark. He has had much time in the past to inspect thoroughly the few belongings of his room, and he has again and again looked curiously at that bark. He had never seen any just like it, and did not know the name of the tree which had yielded it, yet he had observed that it resembled thin sheets of paper.

Now he crawls weakly to the cot and gets one of the thinnest and lightest of these bark sheets. None 289are of very large size, yet he takes the largest he can find.

Then, by the light of the dripping candle, he begins to write a message on the bark, using the lead of the cartridge as a pencil.

The prisoner has not written the half of what he wishes to say, when he hears a sound which causes him to cease writing. He crushes the unfinished message into the handle of the dagger, which opens when he presses a secret spring.

Still hastening feverishly, he ties the dagger to the neck of the bird with the cord he has twisted, and then, crawling to the window, he hurls the bird out into the darkness. He hears the apparently futile beat of its wings, as it seems to be drawn downward by the weight of the dagger tied to its neck; and then, overcome, he falls, half fainting, by the window.

“It was useless!” he groans. “The bird cannot carry that weight while it is weak, and I could not wait for its strength to return. It has fallen, and it will not rise again.”

Nearer he hears the steady thump of feet which had hastened and frightened him. Then the door of his prison is opened, and a man, fierce whiskered and fierce of eye, looks in. He sees the candle guttering on its box, and anger blazes in that fierce, bright eye. He strides across the room.

“Was it not commanded that no lights should be shown in this room at so late an hour?” he demands, and he seizes the limp form, drags it over the floor, and flings it upon the cot in the corner, using as 290harsh a hand as if the miserable prisoner had been but a bag of salt.

The prisoner’s head strikes heavily against the wall, and he drops limp, with a moan, upon the cot.

“Scoundrel! Dog!” cries the fierce-whiskered man. “Lie there! You would send a message to some one with the candle, eh? If thou art dead, well enough!”

He blows out the candle, retreats, and locks the door, then his heavy tread is heard descending the stairs.

In the morning he comes again, unlocks the door, and steps within. He sees that the prisoner is lying as when last seen. He bends over the cot and looks again into the pallid face and closed eyes.

“Humph!” he mutters. “Dead! He must have had a soft skull, if that killed him. But he is dead!”

CHAPTER XXXIX. A PERILOUS CLIMB.

Buffalo Bill had retained the lariats that had been on the two horses abandoned, and had them with him now, and these he meant to use in scaling the steep wall he had seen before him.

With them on his arm he approached the wall, after darkness had fallen, leaving the Yankee in hiding in the midst of some bushes not far from its base.

The handkerchief had been seen still fluttering from the barred window when the last rays of the sunset touched the tower, and the spot had been carefully marked by the scout. He had no fear of going astray; the only thing he questioned was his ability to mount the wall. Yet he was a good climber, and he hoped to have no trouble.

Enos Spalding, left behind, gnawed his gnarled fingers and grumbled to himself, for he had gone without food many hours.

Having reached the moat before the wall, the scout climbed carefully down into it, finding water not more than ankle deep, with some slimy ooze and a growth of rank weeds and grasses.

At the base of the wall he stopped and reconnoitered, then found the exact spot he had located during the day with his glasses.

Above this point, he had discovered, was a small projection. He hurled one of the lariats up through 292the darkness, hoping to loop its noose over the projection. More than a dozen times he tried and failed, but his persistence was at last rewarded. He drew down on the rope to see that it was really fast and would support him; then he began to climb it, with feet set against the wall. The second lariat he bore on his arm.

When he had gained the projection, he clung there by his eyebrows, as it were, and hurled the second lariat upward, with an outswing of his arm.

Time and again the folds of the lariat fell down about him.

It would have been a difficult feat to noose that second projection even in the daytime, at night the task was infinitely harder.

He began to grow tired from swinging the noose upward so many times, when it caught, as the one had done, before, and held fast. He left the first lariat in position, and began to climb the second, intending to leave them in place, to facilitate a quick descent in case of need.

This noose had caught on the projection of stone just below the barred window; and in a very short time the scout had his face at that window, having clutched the ledge and drawn himself up.

At the scout’s back, tied there, was a strong stick of wood, with which he had armed himself, in addition to his revolvers and his knife.

“Hist!” he called, as he clung to the window and tried to look through the bars.

293The handkerchief was in position; he felt it flutter against his cheek.

“Hist!” he called, still louder.

There was a startled stir in the room and after an instant a voice whispered: “What is it?” The words were in Spanish.

“If there is a prisoner in here, I have come to aid him,” said the scout.

“Thank Heaven!”

There was a scrambling sound, as if some one slid to the floor, and then soft footfalls. A face was pressed close against the bars on the inner side.

“Who is it?” was asked in Spanish.

“I am an American scout, and if prisoners are held here, I stand ready to aid them. Is this Leon Ruiz?”

“Ruiz is dead; he died in the tower at the other corner, a week ago.”

“That is impossible,” said the scout, “for I saw and talked with him but two nights since.”

There was no answer to this, save the excited breathing of the man crouched at the tower window.

“Speak quickly,” said the scout. “I cannot sustain myself here longer; the strain is too great. I shall have to lower myself. Are you Prince Mogador?”

The answer was a joyful cry, and then the words:

“I am Prince Mogador! You bring me help? You have come to get me out of the clutches of these foul fiends?”

“Yes.”

“But you cannot get in! You cannot get through 294these bars, unless you have a saw. I have tried to force them, but failed.”

“Reach your hand through and clasp mine,” said the scout. “That will assist me. If you can support me here in that way for a few seconds I may be able to loosen one of the bars. They are secured on the outside, I discover.”

Trembling hands came through the bars and clutched the scout by the wrist. But those hands had the holding power of steel, the scout found; hope of escape had filled their owner with renewed strength.

With one hand thus freed, the scout took the strong stick of wood that he carried lashed to his back, and thrust an end between the bars of the window.

“Hold hard!” he ordered, and threw his weight on the stick.

The window bars were of iron, fastened on the outside by heavy staples, yet the force of the wrench thus given tore loose the staples at one end.

But for the clinging hands that clutched him the scout would have fallen when the staples lost their hold and the window bar twisted around. He caught the projection, and again hoisted himself.

“That was good!” he said. “One more, and you can come out of that. Your fingers clung like iron.”

“Hope makes me strong, señor,” was the trembling answer.

The scout rested a moment or two.

“Now, again!” he said, “hold for your life!”

Again he thrust in the stick and threw his weight upon the outer end. There was a cracking sound; the 295stick itself broke; the bar had been loosened, though the scout had come near falling. Then he crawled up again, using the rope.

“Now, you can come through, and before morning we can be far from here. You may tell me your story after we have got down from this and the peril is not so great. Hold hard!”

There was an interruption, the scout heard a suspicious sound. He whispered his discovery to Prince Mogador. He felt the rope shake by which he had ascended. Then he heard the voice of the Yankee, who had climbed the first rope undiscovered and was now mounting the second.

“By gravy! aire ye up there?” he asked.

“Yes, what is it? What does this mean?”

“It means, Cody, that I was crowded aout daown there by some men, and had tew make a run fur it. I run tew this wall. While I was flaounderin’ raound in that consarned moat, they come on me ag’in, so clost that I see the only thing I could do was to climb up here, and so I clumb. But——”

His trembling explanation was cut short by words in Spanish shouted from below.

Then a revolver cracked, spurting its fire into the darkness. The bullet shattered itself against the iron of the last bar the scout had torn away.

“Wow!” cried the Yankee, as if he had been hit. “That was cuttin’ some clost, I tell ye!”

The way below was blocked, for other revolvers popped there, and other voices were heard.

The frightened Yankee, swaying on the rope and 296clutching blindly at the wall for support, was almost ready to fall headlong.

“Cody, I can’t hold on here a minute longer!” he appealed. “Can’t ye git higher, er git somewhere? They’ll shoot us here, sure as guns!”

Buffalo Bill felt one of the bullets cut through his coat and burn his arm, so close did it pass to his body.

The men below did not see who was at the window, but they had discovered, or suspected, this attempt at a rescue, and they were popping away in the darkness, sending their lead perilously near.

“We’ll have to climb into the room,” said the scout, with sudden decision. He regretted the necessity, but he drew himself up and crawled between the broken bars and dropped into the room.

Prince Mogador clasped him enthusiastically round the shoulders, in the impulsive Spanish fashion.

“My rescuer! My savior!” he panted.

“Let me help the other man in,” said the scout, freeing himself. “This is bad—bad! If we could have had but five minutes longer.”

Then he dragged the frightened and panting Yankee through the bars into the little room of the tower.

CHAPTER XL. A PERILOUS POSITION.

When he was safely within the tower, Buffalo Bill drew up the rope last used, so that the men below could not readily climb to the window. The tower room was in total darkness, and he could not even see the Moroccan prince for whom he had taken such risks.

“We ought to have a light,” he said. “Have you a lamp or a candle?”

Prince Mogador scuffled across the room, and, by the light of a match, produced the stub of a candle, which he offered to the scout. The latter set a match to it, and when the candle was burning well he glanced about.

The room was small, and its only furnishings were this candle, a thin cot, a stool, and a box on which the candle had been sitting.

The scout looked at the prince, and beheld a hollow-eyed young man, whose unshaven face was so thin and so sallow that it seemed he must be the victim of a fever. His clothing hung loosely on his almost fleshless bones. Seeing this mere wreck and skeleton of a man, the scout marveled at the strength displayed when the prince rendered assistance at the window. It had been the false strength lent by sudden and high hope.

The excitement of his situation still buoyed Prince Mogador. His eyes were unhealthily bright and staring, 298and he trembled as if he had a fit of ague. The scout saw him reel and put his hand against the wall.

“You are weak,” said the scout. “Sit down.”

“But we must escape while we can!”

Prince Mogador was looking at the exhausted Yankee, who had been thoroughly tired by his hard and unaccustomed climbing. And the Yankee was returning the look with interest.

“What’s he sayin’ in that furrin lingo?” asked Spalding.

“This is Prince Mogador!”

“I want tew know!” Spalding gasped, his mouth dropping open. “That beats heck, by gum! So it’s him?” He turned to Buffalo Bill. “Waal, what we goin’ tew do? They’re still shootin’ daown there. We can’t git aout by the winder.”

“There may be another way out,” said the prince, speaking to the scout—he did not understand Spalding’s twisted English, but understood his glance at the window. “If that door could be opened!”

The scout took some keys from his pocket and began to try them on the lock of the door. He found one that fitted, and threw the bolt.

The rays of the candle streamed out into a narrow corridor, at the end of which was another locked door.

“We’ll see where this leads,” he said, stepping into the corridor. “Follow me!”

He found a key which fitted the other door, but, as he was unlocking it, he was interrupted by a startled cry. Prince Mogador bent forward, listening.

“It is the woman!” he said. “I didn’t know she was 299in there—that she was imprisoned so close by me! Yes, it is the woman.”

“What woman?” asked the scout, as he worked the key round in the lock.

“The señorita with the voice of gold!”

This was astonishing.

“There is an American woman held prisoner here?”

“Yes, señor, two women. One is a beautiful American lady, whose singing is divine.”

“Hear that, Spalding? But I forgot that you do not understand Spanish.”

The bolt slipped back, and the scout pushed the door open, hearing again that stifled cry.

When his light flashed into the room he saw at its farther side the crouching figures of two women, whose attitude was that of terror.

“Don’t be frightened!” said the scout kindly. “We are your friends. Miss Fernald, are you—yes, it is you! And, if I’m not mistaken, Miss Nelson—your uncle is here, having come a long distance to search for you.”

Emily Fernald sprang forward with a glad cry, but the other girl stared at Cody, her face white as ashes; and then, seeing the men behind him, she advanced with a hesitating step.

“You are friends?” she cried suddenly. “What do I hear? You are friends, and my uncle is with you?”

Her voice broke in a scream of incredulous delight when she beheld the ungainly form of the Yankee glide into the room. The next moment she had her arms around his neck, and was weeping hysterically.

300“Gosh all hemlock!” Spalding sputtered. “But this does beat all, don’t it? I’m as s’prised tew find ye here as if I’d picked up a gold dollar. I dreamed it might be so, but, b’gosh, I didn’t reely think it could be! And that’s a fact.”

He released her clinging hands and held her at arms’ length, looking at her by the light of the candle.

The Moroccan prince was uttering sundry Spanish ejaculations.

“We must go on!” said the scout, in warning. “If we delay we may be cooped in. I’ll try my key on that other door.”

It yielded to his manipulations even more easily than the others, and they found themselves in a wide hall. Following this, they came to another door at the next corner of the building. The wide hall bent and ran around this; but now they heard, on some stairs beyond, excited cries and a trampling of feet, showing that men were coming up there.

“We’ll see what’s behind this door,” said the scout, observing that it offered the only avenue of escape.

When it was opened they were at the foot of a short flight that led to one of the tower rooms. Into this they rushed, and the scout locked the door behind them.

The excited cries and trampling feet drew nearer, and a resounding knock sounded soon on the door.

“Open!” was the demand.

To the scout’s surprise, the voice which shouted this was the voice of the man he had known at the Porfiero Hacienda as Leon Ruiz.

301Recalling what Prince Mogador had said, he knew now that this man had assumed the name, to which he had no right, while the real Ruiz lay a prisoner in this place.

“What would you?” the scout asked.

“Surrender to us, Prince Mogador, and you and the others may go free; we will not molest you.”

The scout laughed scornfully.

“Never! You are the scoundrel who falsely called himself Leon Ruiz. Hear this: I was sent here by my government to aid and succor Prince Mogador, and I shall do what I can for him, if I lose my life.”

“You will lose it!” was shouted back.

They withdrew without shooting into the room, apparently because they did not wish to risk slaying the prince.

“Well, we’re in for it now,” said Buffalo Bill, almost ruefully. “They’ve got us caged, unless we can escape from this window. And we have no ropes.”

He struck a match and walked over to the window, which was barred. Between the bars he thrust the match and tried to look down, and then threw the match away. It went out quickly, revealing only blackness below the barred window.

Soon, in the hall leading to the tower room, they heard a sliding sound which they did not at that moment understand.

“We’ve barred you in, and you can stay there until you rot!” was soon shouted. “When you are ready to surrender, let us know. You cannot escape.”

302Again it was the voice of the man who had called himself Leon Ruiz.

It was clear, now, that this man, frightened by the scout’s descent on the Porfiero Hacienda, had departed from it hurriedly, after learning his mission, to carry word to this place, and, perhaps, he had been at this place since. Yet that did not explain the other mysterious things which so long had puzzled the scout.

“They have slipped some bars into position beyond the door,” said Prince Mogador. “With a barred window behind us, and the way barred in front, the outlook is gloomy. But we will still hope.”

The scout had struck another match and was looking around for a candle. He found none. But before the match burned out he saw Prince Mogador standing with his hand clasping the hand of Irene Nelson, as if he would protect her. The sight was illuminating. It showed that the two were not only acquainted, but were lovers.

The prince caught that inquiring glance as the match went out, and began to explain in his voluble Spanish.

“The American señorita has promised to become my wife. We met on the stage that came from Rincon, which was waylaid and destroyed at the time we were captured and brought here. But our love had already ripened, and she had promised to become my wife. I love this woman, and I will marry her if we escape from here.”

“What’s he sayin’ in that furrin lingo?” Spalding asked; but Prince Mogador was hurrying on.

303“You know why they captured me and brought me here, if you came as my rescuer; but perhaps you do not know all. You have heard that I am heir apparent to the throne of my father—the throne of the small kingdom of Ussuli, to the southward of Morocco. The capital is in an oasis of the great desert.

“My father cannot live long; two years at the utmost, the physicians say, and he may be dead even now, for he was seriously ill when I heard of him. But I have a brother who wishes to be king, but who cannot be king so long as I am alive, unless I abdicate.

“My health was not good, and I went to the summer resort of Faezzi, on the heights of the Atlas Mountains. From the palace there I was kidnapped, as I walked abroad one day not dreaming of danger. It was by my brother’s orders. I was placed on a camel, and a long journey to the seashore began. There I was smuggled aboard a vessel.

“The voyage was long—it covered months, and then I was landed on a shore which was barren and which was said to be Mexico. Certain men were still with me—my captors. But I escaped from them, and by good chance made my way into California. I was trying to reach some eastern point, or some railway that would take me east.

“I took the stage at Rincon, thinking I had thrown my enemies off my trail. It was there, señor, I met this beautiful American lady and her friend, who had come to meet her, only two days before. Señor, I won her promise to become my wife.

“Then came the attack on the stage. The driver 304was killed. These women and I and another were the only passengers. The stage was smashed to bits and sunk in the river to destroy all traces of it, the horses were appropriated by the robbers. I discovered that they were the men, with others, who had abducted me from the palace in the Atlas Mountains.

“I told them, señor, who these women were, but they refused to believe me, declaring that they knew Miss Nelson was my wife. With us they took prisoner Don Leon Ruiz, the Spanish gentleman, who was the only other passenger in the stage. By chance in my wanderings in California I had met him. He was a descendant of a noble Spanish family, and he intended to visit some estate of his ancestors in New Mexico. He had long wished to do so, and for that purpose had come up from Mexico, where he had been traveling.

“When he learned who I was, he joined my fortunes, and so was with me when the stage was attacked and destroyed. And he was brought as a prisoner with me to this place. He was confined here, in one of the towers, but a week ago he died, so one of the guards informed me, when I asked information from him.”

“I can add to that,” said the scout. “The ruffian out there who has been shouting to us to surrender has taken possession of Don Ruiz’s New Mexican estate, claiming to be the real Leon Ruiz. And if the noble Don Ruiz died in his prison here, it may be safely guessed that the false Ruiz was in part, or wholly, responsible for his death. I presume he believed 305that if Ruiz was put out of the way he could hold the New Mexican property without trouble, or sell it soon and get out of the country with the money.”

“I have fallen into the hands of a nest of villains!” said Prince Mogador.

“There is no doubt about that. And how we are to escape is a thing not clear to me just now.”

“I will die defending her, before they harm this woman!” said Prince Mogador.

“What’s he sayin’ in that furrin lingo?” Spalding asked again.

Buffalo Bill informed him briefly, thus also informing Irene, who understood Spanish but imperfectly. Raoul Mogador could speak English, but preferred to use Spanish, and so addressed the scout in that tongue, when he knew that Buffalo Bill spoke Spanish fluently.

The men under the false Leon Ruiz, who had barred them in, made no hurried movement against them, and they had time to canvass their situation thoroughly, and discuss, as well, some of the mysteries which had so puzzled the scout. He asked Spalding to produce the note in Spanish which he had taken from the jacket pocket of the Mexican. They examined it by the light of a match.

“That is not the signature of Leon Ruiz, though it professes to be; it is a forgery,” said the prince.

“Written, of course, by the false Leon Ruiz,” said the scout. “He intended to use the name at all times, and so did not hesitate to sign it here.”

“Very true. He is a scoundrel. I wish I could see his face. He is, of course, one of the men who 306brought me here. Ah, Leon Ruiz, my true friend, your kind friendship for me has cost you dear!”

Buffalo Bill brought up the subject of the dagger of gold which had seemingly fallen from the sky and slain Ramon Periguez.

“Periguez! Ah, he was one of the fiends! So he is dead, struck down by a dagger that dropped from the sky! I cannot explain it; yet Leon Ruiz had such a dagger, cleverly concealed on his person; he told me once that he had so good a way of hiding it that no one could find it.”

“Describe that dagger to me!” said the scout.

Prince Mogador complied.

“I have seen it often,” he said. “I wish I had it here, and, also, the message I placed in the handle. You knew it had that hidden receptacle in the handle?”

“Yes, Ruiz revealed it to me one day when he was showing me the dagger. It was Moorish, and the spring was cunningly concealed. He said he defied any one to find the spring.”

“I have a theory,” said the scout. “He must have written the message, but, being interrupted, he did not finish it, and then he gave it to some one he had bribed, instructing him where to take it.”

“It may be true,” said Mogador, “but how did it drop out of the sky?”

“The bearer may have hurled it from the cliff,” said the scout. “I cannot explain it.”

Irene Nelson listened in wonder to all this, though she followed the unfamiliar words with difficulty.

“I don’t like this furrin lingo,” expostulated the 307Yankee, who felt that he was being cheated when he could not understand every word said. “Why don’t you talk United States? It’s well-nigh treason tew talk anything but United States in this country.”

But at intervals the scout explained for his benefit what had been said.

All speculation concerning the manner in which the dagger had killed Ramon Periguez seemed useless.

While they still talked, a flare of fire greeted their eyes at the barred window.

Looking from the window, they discovered that a great bonfire had been kindled at the foot of the cliff, among the trees, that it might light up the hacienda wall on that side, and so reveal to the watchers any attempt which the prisoners might make to escape by way of the window.

“That cuts us off in that direction,” said the scout, “but we could not have got out here, if we had tried, for we had no ropes, and the jump down in the darkness would be to commit suicide.”

“Alas! We are doomed!” said the prince.

CHAPTER XLI. MUSIC HATH CHARMS.

“Since I have been held here,” Prince Mogador went on, “attempts have been made to get me to sign papers relinquishing my rights to the throne of my country. I refused; I would have died first. I think ultimately I should have been murdered in this place. Perhaps even now my false-hearted brother sits on the throne, for my father’s health was precarious. I have not heard from my native land for months. But whatever befalls, my beautiful Irene will stand by my side, and if I should one day mount to the throne of my fathers, she will be with me even then.”

But the next moment he was bewailing the fate that held him a prisoner in the tower and declaring that they would never be able to get out with their lives.

While Prince Mogador was still talking, the scout, looking from the window at the fire below, had an inspiration.

“You will notice, prince,” he said, “that a good many men are down there round that fire; it seems to me from the number I see that nearly all the garrison of this place must be there.”

“They have guards stationed in the hall, no doubt, and at the door below,” said Prince Mogador, in a despairing tone.

The scout turned to the women and Spalding.

“I have been informed by your uncle, Miss Nelson, that you are a noted singer.”

309“Singing is my profession,” she admitted.

“I have hit on a plan, and shall want your coöperation. Will you sing for me?”

“Here?” she said, astonished.

“Yes, here; I want to see what effect it will have on those men below.”

Irene went to the window and looked out. Then she began to sing in a voice of marvelous beauty and strength. Old Enos Spalding listened enraptured.

“Cody, what’s this singin’ fur here?”

The scout was watching the men from the window. He advised the girl to stand back a little, lest some reckless devil down there might send a bullet at her; and, for the same reason, when he looked forth, he was careful not to expose his person to their view.

The singing seemed at first to startle the men below. The scout beheld the false Leon Ruiz among them, and pointed him out to Prince Mogador.

“Ah, that man! That is Malvolio Ducraz, my worst enemy of all there. So, he would take the estate of the noble Don Leon Ruiz? May the curses of Heaven blast him!”

The men stood up in the midst of the trees, listening to the singing from the barred window of the high tower. The woman’s voice floated clear and birdlike out into the night air. It certainly was a strange stage for an opera singer.

The scout walked softly over to the door and listened.

“Keep on singing!” he said. “It has drawn their attention.”

310He fitted to the lock one of the keys on his key ring, and listened as he twisted it around.

When he drew the door open, he saw that the hall beyond was empty of human beings, but that across it there had been slipped into place, down some grooves in the walls, a series of iron bars that effectually cut off escape in that direction. Apparently there was no need for the keepers of the hacienda to watch that hall; the bars were enough.

Down the short flight of steps the scout descended to the bars, and tested them. So far as he could discover there was no one near, though he heard voices below the farther stairs, which told him guards were stationed there.

Soon he heard some of these guards ascending. Thereupon he retreated quickly into the tower room and relocked the door behind him.

“If you can continue that singing, I think we may have a chance to get out of here,” he said to the woman, as he listened for the approach of the guards from below.

All heard them as they came up to the door, where for a few moments they stood to hear the singing. Though it puzzled them when they discovered that the door was as they had left it, they retreated, closing the barred exit in the hall as they went.

“Now, my plan!” said the scout, speaking hurriedly. “I have here, in the brim of my wide hat, a saw of finely tempered steel, made for the especial purpose of cutting through iron bars. It will take long work to cut through out there, as it will be necessary to 311sever two of the bars; but if Miss Nelson can hold those men by her singing, and so cover up the noise I may make, perhaps I can do it. I want to make the trial.”

All were eager for him to do so, even Irene stopped her singing for a brief time to discuss this new hope with him.

“We must do something of the kind,” he declared, “if we are to get out of here. They think they have us secluded securely, and that we have not a single chance of getting out. Perhaps we may be able to surprise them.”

Irene began again to sing by the window, while the scout and Spalding crept down the short flight of stairs, after the scout had again unlocked the door of their prison room.

“You watch while I work,” was the scout’s orders. “I don’t want them to surprise me. Your ears are good?”

“The best ever,” said the Yankee, dropping down on his knees and laying an ear against the crack under the lower bar. “If they git up them steps without me hearin’ em, they’ll have tew come paowerful quiet.”

From the wide rim of his hat the scout, in the darkness, drew out a fine saw, the texture of which was so superior that he could bend the thin blade about in his fingers almost as if it were a ribbon. This saw he applied to one of the bars, and began work.

For two solid hours Irene Nelson entertained with her singing the ruffians gathered around the bonfire amid the trees below the barred window of that high 312tower. She sang as she had never sung before any audience in either the New or the Old World. Hitherto she had sung for fame and money, now she felt that she was singing for liberty and life.

The Spanish are a music-loving people. Those men knew what good singing was, and they had seldom heard anything so good as this. They stood as if enraptured. If they suspected the meaning of it, they gave no sign. Apparently they believed she was thus singing to lighten the hearts of her fellow prisoners. Now and then there were cries of “Bravo!” and a clapping of hands.

Buffalo Bill worked without stop. At the end of two hours he had cut away two of the iron bars.

Before announcing his success even to Spalding, he replaced the precious saw carefully in the brim of his big hat.

“There!” he said. “Two bars are off, and that will let us out of here. We’ll have to fight in the room below, to get past those guards; but by making a rushing surprise we can go through, I don’t doubt.”

Spalding wanted to yell, but he restrained this wild desire.

The man and women in the other room were informed of the success of the scout’s labors. The singing stopped.

“Now, follow me!” said the scout. “Take this revolver, Prince Mogador, and use it. Spalding, I can rely on you. This is to be a desperate break for freedom, and we must get through.”

Then they followed him out of the room, through 313the cut bars in the hall at the foot of the short stairs, and on down to the guardroom just below. Into this guardroom they dashed, shooting at the men they saw there.

Six men were in the room, all armed, all smoking; they had been listening to the singing, and were asking themselves why it had continued so long and then so abruptly had stopped.

Through the room, still shooting and now yelling, rushed the scout, with his companions dashing along right behind him; and so sudden did they come that the guards were overwhelmed, and offered no resistance to their quick passage. Less than five minutes later they were outside of the big hacienda.

Here along the wall the scout led, while the startled men who had been by the bonfire were coming up at a fast run.

The fugitives were soon out beyond the trees on the opposite of the big house, and well under cover of the darkness.

Straight northward the scout led the way, avoiding all pitfalls with wonderful skill—the sort of skill that has made Buffalo Bill famous the world over. The next morning they were far away, and had baffled pursuit. The scout concealed their trail and hid his little party in the hills, and for their sustenance he killed game with his revolver.

The next night they pressed on again. They baffled and distanced their pursuers, and two days later safely reached some outposts of civilization. Thence, after resting a day or two, they proceeded to Klamath, 314where they were joined by Emily’s anxious lover and her father, to whom they related their adventures.

“Emily,” said Mr. Fernald, with mock severity, “you’ve got to do either one of the only two things that’ll keep you out of danger: stay home with me at the ranch, or—marry John Butler. Take your choice!”

“I choose—John,” said the girl.

“Cody, you’ll have to stay here and be best man at our wedding,” said Butler, when he found words to speak.

It was three months after the wedding when the scout received the following letter, bearing a queer foreign postmark; it was from Enos Spalding:

“My Dear Cody: Well, we arrived in this confounded country all right and O. K. But fer me it was the most seasicky voyage you ever heard about. The prince was the real thing. He married Irene in New York, ye know, before we set out fer this place; and here he married her again, according to the customs of this country. Two weddin’s ought to make the nupshal tie plenty good and strong, hadn’t it?

“Well, you’d ought to be here to see things. They’d surprise ye. I’m more and more surprised every day I live; and to think I never ever dreamp that there was sech a country as this kingdom!

“Ye see, the old king he died; and the brother what made all the trouble fur the prince, he cut out when he found that he was likely to lose his head fur what he’d done to Moggie. I call the new king Moggie, though Irene she says ’tain’t befittin’ and proper. 315Well, you’d ought to see things here! I jes’ wish you could see some of these heathen when they drap down and paound their heads on the pavement when I pass by! ’Twould shore tickle ye. Fur, ye see, I’m the queen’s uncle, and that means I’m a big man in these parts. Haow’s that fur old Enos Spalding, of Spalding’s Corners, Vermont? By heck, at night sometimes I think shore I’m dreamin’ it, and that I’ll wake up in the mornin’ and find I’m back tew Spalding’s Corners.

“Come over, Cody, I’ll give ye the time of yer life.

As to how the dagger of gold dropped out of the sky, Buffalo Bill never knew certainly. We may reasonably believe that the gull carried it for a time, tied to its neck, and that the hurriedly knotted string at length gave way. When this occurred, and let the dagger fall, the gull must have been flying over the steep wall of the Superstition Range; the bird’s motion must, also, have given a forward impetus to the falling dagger, and by chance it struck point foremost in the bosom of Ramon Periguez, killing him. There was certainly more than one dagger, just alike, which explains the mystery.

No. 195 of the Buffalo Bill Border Stories, by Colonel Prentiss Ingraham, is entitled “Buffalo Bill’s Redskin Disguise.”