CHAPTER XV.MARY HALE.
In a comfortable log cabin, containing four rooms, and surrounded by every evidence of a well-to-do borderman’s home, sat Mary Hale. She was thinking of her noble friend, Buffalo Bill, who had saved her from marriage with the Gambler Guide.
Her father had brought her sad news only a short while before to the effect that the expected train had arrived from Border City and along with it Ben Tabor, his Texas pards, and Old Negotiate, who had been initiated as a member of the band, but that no tidings had they had of Buffalo Bill for weeks.
He had left camp before daylight one morning, it was said, to go on a hunt. Since then he had not been seen. Though the train had halted for two days, and parties had been sent out in all directions, no trace of him had been discovered.
The last to see him was Parson Bristow, who had reported that while he was throwing the earth into his daughter’s grave, the scout had joined him and aided him in his sad work, and that when he had left the timber to overtake the train, Buffalo Bill had said he would remain and hunt for game.
Ben Tabor and his Texans had gone back to the timber, where was the lone grave of the young girl, and had seen the tracks of the scout and of Midnight. But they had also made a discovery which filled them with dread, for there were signs of a large party of horsemen having passed that way, and not far distant was another new-made mound.
They had thrown the earth out of the grave, expecting to find the body of Buffalo Bill, but with glad hearts they saw that it was not the face of the scout. What they saw was a painted face and a form clad in Indian costume. But the paint was a disguise—beneath it was the fair skin of a white man.
Farther upon the prairie, as they followed the trail of over a score of horses, they found a dead mustang, a bullet in his head.
“Ther gerloot in ther hole had a wound in his head, an’ this mustang died suddint like o’ ther same disease, an’ I’m thinking thet Buffier Bill were the one as did ther shootin’.”
Such had been the comment of Seven-foot Harry, and so had all agreed. They followed on the trail to the hills, where they lost it, and, with their small force dare not go farther, and gave the scout up as dead. Suddenly a hoof fall caught the ear of Mary Hale, as she thought of these things, and, glancing up, she saw a horseman approaching the cabin.
Then, as she gazed, she recognized the rider, and her face flushed crimson. A moment after he dismounted, and met her upon the piazza.
“Why, Captain Dash, who would have expected to see you here?” she said, in the innocent way a woman can assume in deceiving a lover, while she well knew she had expected and hoped for his coming for months.
“You said I might come, Mary,” answered the captain of the Revolver Riders, in his sincere way.
“Did I?” she asked archly.
“Yes; have you forgotten the time when I struck your train with my Revolver Riders, and captured Kent King, the Gambler Guide?”
“Oh, no, Mr. Cody led you there, and you both did me a noble service.”
“Yes, noble Cody, whom some of my men report dead. I intend to start on his trail to-morrow with my men.”
“I fear it will be useless, from all my father tells me,” she said sadly.
“It may be useless, as far as finding him is concerned; but not to avenge him,” and his voice became deep and stern.
“But you know not whom to strike as his murderers, Captain Dash.”
“I do know; the man who pretended to be Parson Bristow——”
“Pretended to be, captain? Why, he certainly seemed a sincere Christian. He came to supper with father last night, and was very entertaining, I assure you.”
“As he knows how to be, for he is none other than Kent King.”
“Kent King! That wretch! Impossible, for you——” and Mary’s face turned white as she paused.
“No, I did not kill him, for he escaped from me before we reached Santa Fe. He was captured in Border City in disguise by Buffalo Bill and some of my men, and again escaped, through the love of a girl who had sought him to kill him, but changed her mind, and fled with him. In the disguise of a preacher he boldly joined the westward-bound train, though Buffalo Bill and some of my men were along; and he passed the girl, Panther Kate, also disguised, off as his daughter.
“That poor girl he poisoned by degrees, she not evensuspecting it, and she was buried on the side of the trail. At her grave Buffalo Bill found him, and recognized him by some means. Then Cody was forced to fly for his life, pursued by the Trail Bandits, who just then came up, painted as Indians.”
“Can this be true?” gasped Mary Hale, trembling violently.
“I got it from one of his own men, whom I recognized, and hanged an hour ago, knowing him to be a renegade and murderer.”
“And where is Kent King now?” she asked, in almost a whisper.
“He has fled. It seems he saw us hanging the man, though we did not then see him, and he took to the prairie, with his band.”
“His band?”
“Yes, he is chief of the Trail Bandits now.”
“This is fearful, indeed.”
“But I shall soon be on their trail. My Revolver Riders now number half a hundred, and we will bring back Bill Cody, or avenge him fearfully.”
“And you start to-morrow?” asked Mary, her voice faltering.
“Yes, I arrived in Denver a couple of days ago from Texas, where I had some business to attend to, for I am not altogether what you believe me, Miss Hale.”
“What! Do you wear disguises, too, Captain Dash?”
“Only when necessary to track villainy to the fountain seat; but I mean, I am the owner of a large cattle ranch, and not a poor man, as being in command of a band of herders would lead you to believe. I have a score to settle with Kent King. To find him,I joined the Revolver Riders, who made me their captain, and they are all now under my pay until I accomplish the task I have set out to perform.”
“And God grant you may do it, Captain Dash.”
“My name is Dudley Dashwood, Miss Hale; my men called me Captain Dash,” said the handsome young Texan, with a smile.
Then he resumed:
“When we parted on the trail, long months ago, I asked that I might visit you here, and you said yes.”
“And I assure you I am glad you have come.”
“Thank you; but I was so bold then as to say that I loved you, although we had met but that once; yet, in all the time that has gone by since then, I have grown each day to love you more, until you are now necessary to my happiness, and I have come to ask you to be my wife.”
He took her hands in his own, and gazed down upon her bowed head; but she remained silent, and, raising the beautiful face until he gazed down into it, he asked:
“Have I come in vain, Mary?”
“No.”
The answer was very low, but he heard it, and drew her gently toward him, while he asked:
“When am I to call you wholly my own, Mary?”
“When you have found Mr. Cody, or run Kent King to earth,” she said, almost sternly.
“Enough, I ask no more; but here comes your father, and I will ask him for your hand, now that you have given me your heart.”
The young Texan turned and greeted Mary’s father as he came upon the piazza, evidently greatly excited.
“Glad to meet you, Captain Dash; but, sir, the devilish old parson was no parson at all, but Kent King, the Gambler Guide, who has escaped and swept down the valley at the head of twoscore renegades, burning and pillaging as he went.”
“He has already begun his mad work, then?”
“He has, indeed, and the vigilantes are organizing to go in pursuit; and more, he would have paid us a visit had not a band of miners turned him back.”
“I will leave at once on his trail. Mary, I leave to you to say what I would have said to your father; good-by.”
Two minutes after, Captain Dash was riding like the wind toward the encampment of the Revolver Riders, some ten miles distant and in his heart were commingling the antipodes of emotions—hatred for the Gambler Guide, and love for Mary Hale.