CHAPTER IX.THE CHASE.
Old Nomad was exclaiming softly in his characteristic way, standing on the edge of a precipitous cliff wall. The baron, by his side, had hold of a bush, and was peering over into the depths below.
“I’m er Piegan,” said Nomad, “ef suthin’ ain’t been throwed down thar!”
“Aber I gand’t seen noddings, I am pelieving idt iss der pody,” the baron averred.
Sounds of footsteps attracted their attention.
Then they saw Buffalo Bill hurrying toward them.
He had come rapidly from the town, having followed them without trouble, because of the broken bushes they had left in their wake to guide him.
“Waugh!” Nomad called to him, and swung his hand. “Come over hyar!”
“I’m coming.”
“Ve haf followed der drail to dot boint ofer dhere,” the baron explained, as the scout came up. “Idt vendt straight on; but Nomat he seen vot he took to pe dracks goming dhis vay; unt idt loogks as uff somed’ings had peen pitched town here.”
“We’re believin’ thet ther critter we follered sidetracked carefully to this point,” added Nomad, “an’ hyar he got rid o’ ther body he war kerryin’. Et looks et.”
The scout seized a bush, and began to go down the cliff side.
“We can soon discover if it is so,” he said.
“Vot dit you findt in der town?” the baron shot at him.
“Vera Bright, Juniper Joe, and his wife are all missing.”
“Waugh!” Nomad whooped. “We’ve been figgerin’ thet we’ve been follerin’ ther trail o’ Juniper Joe and p’raps his wife. Anyhow, thar’s big tracks and leetle ones. But we couldn’t make et come out right thet Juniper Joe an’ his wife had been hyar, when we reckoned they war back in ther own cabin.”
The scout soon reached the bottom of the cavity, which was bush-grown along its sides. He called up his discovery.
“Your guess was right,” he said. “Here is the body.”
It had been pitched far enough out, so that in its fall it did not break bushes; and it lay in a crumpled heap.
The scout only tarried long enough to be sure that it was the body of the man known to him as Jackson Dane; then he came climbing up out of the black depths.
“Yes,” he added, “whoever had the body threw it over here, to get rid of it; and took it from that other place so that it might not be found by the searchers.”
“Why sh’d he wanted ter do thet?” Nomad queried.
“I can only guess, of course; though he ought to have known that it had already been seen. In law, you know, the body must be produced, or identified, in order to convict any one of murder; otherwise, there could be no showing absolutely that the man supposed to be murdered was dead. He might be living, somewhere in secret. But it was a foolish move, in this case, to try to hide it here, it seems to me; as the body had already been seen.”
“Aber the man vot dook it mighdtn’t haf knowed dot,” suggested the German.
“Very true.”
“But about thet woman and Juniper Joe cuttin’ out?” said Nomad. “You air shore of thet?”
“I went with the officer to the Casino, to arrest the woman, but she had left by the morning stage for Calumet Springs. I sent a telegram to the marshal there; and if he does his duty, it will stop her at that point. When we went to Juniper’s cabin, we found it empty and dark. On forcing the door, we found no one, even though we searched the cabin and the mine. Of course, if you have been following their trail, it shows plainly enough where they are now.”
“What’s yer idee?” the trapper questioned.
“Simply that they came out and killed Dane. Perhaps they started back to the town; then saw us, and that changed their plans. Some one shot at me, you know; and probably that was Juniper Joe.”
“Then you’ve reached ther conclusion thet he is plum crooked?”
“I have.”
“And his wife, too?”
“Doesn’t it look it?”
“Waugh! Et does.”
“We’ll pick up their trail over there, and see if we can’t crowd ’em. Did it seem fresh?”
“Not so very old, anyway,” Nomad told him.
“You didn’t see any indication that buckskin bags had been cached, or pitched into some hole?”
“No; but they could er been pitched inter some hole easy ’nuff, without our knowin’ it. Thar’s a lot o’ crevicesalong the trail; an’ without leavin’ his tracks a feller could easy ernough heave buckskin bags inter any of ’em.”
“We haven’t time to look that up, now. Show me the trail, and we’ll see what we can do.”
When the trail was regained, the scout took the lead, and pushed the work hard.
Though the country was rocky and covered with much scrub, they went along rapidly. There were few trailers who could equal Buffalo Bill. It was hard work, so that often he preferred to let his Indians do it; but he was always equal to the task, as in this instance.
There were tracks of two people—one the track of a man surely; the other smaller, which might have been made by a woman; though, if so, she had worn a coarse and heavy shoe, just fitted for that kind of work.
At length the trails split; the larger tracks going off to the right, the others to the left.
“I’ll follow the man,” said the scout; “you take the other. I fancy the man is Juniper Joe; the other may be his wife.”
It had become evident that the couple were getting tired; they had traveled rapidly, as if at first frightened, and so had begun to use up their strength. It was perhaps for that reason they separated; as they might have thought the pursuers, if they knew of them, would follow the larger tracks.
By this time Buffalo Bill and his pards were a good five miles north of the mining town of Blossom Range, and in the vicinity of a village of the Ute tribe of Indians.
The Utes were supposed to be peaceably inclined. Atany rate, they had shown no hostile intentions since Iron Bow had led them on the warpath, five years before, and had been badly worsted. But they were still blanket Indians, much given to powwowing and strange dances, to feathered headdresses and variegated paints.
For some time Buffalo Bill had been half convinced that the tracks he and his pards had followed would lead, by and by, to this Ute village.
Yet, when the tracks separated, this did not seem so likely.
Buffalo Bill, pressing ahead on the trail he had chosen, soon lost sight of Nomad and the baron.
He had gone nearly a mile, through a very rough country, when he became aware of the fact that the Indians were near him; he saw a few, and heard others. They had apparently been deer hunting. Their tracks, here and there, covered over those he was pursuing; so that twice he had to stop and spend valuable time in puzzling out the trail.
“If this fellow is a friend of the Utes, it’s likely he will join the deer hunters,” thought the scout.
A little later a shot rang out.
Thereupon, a man sprang out of bushes a hundred yards away, leaping up as if he thought the bullet had been sent at him, and ran with big jumps across the rocks, through the rough ground.
At a glance, Buffalo Bill saw that the man was Juniper Joe.
“Our guess is right, so far,” he muttered.
The man disappeared quickly; but Buffalo Bill was in hot chase, determined not to lose sight of him.
He was wondering, at the same time, if the Indians hadshot at this man. Apparently, the fellow had thought so; for it seemed that he had leaped up and ran from the Indians, rather than from the scout, whom, apparently, he had not yet seen.
Off at one side Indian yells broke out; but they were not war-trail yells; they were hunting yells, announcing victory.
“The Utes fired at game, and brought it down,” was the scout’s conclusion. “I am sure now they did not shoot at Juniper Joe.”
Then he came again in sight of the man, who had gained a slippery slope, which he was trying to climb, though, at some points, to do it he would have needed the ability of a fly.
Buffalo Bill could see that Juniper Joe was a badly frightened individual. It seemed to the scout he was frightened by the Indian yelling, following the shot; that, in short, Juniper Joe was sure the Indians had fired at him and were now pursuing him.
Climbing over slippery rocks, Juniper Joe gained the treacherous edge of a cañon, along which he ran at reckless speed.
The scout called to him.
The effect was bad. Juniper Joe tried to stop and look about; as he did so, stumbling, so that he was thrown heavily. The next instant he was bounding off the edge of the precipice, and went shooting down.
The scout stopped with a gasp of surprise.
He saw Juniper Joe crash into the top of a pine, out of which he tumbled, to land in a cleft of rock in the face of the cañon.
Apparently, in his wild haste and fright, Juniper Joehad been seriously, perhaps fatally, wounded; he lay prostrate where he had fallen, without motion at first. But a moment later Buffalo Bill saw him put up his hand.
“Not dead yet, at any rate!” said the scout, looking about, with the desire of hurrying to the man’s assistance.
Fortunately, in leaving Blossom Range the scout had not only fully armed himself, but had brought along his lariat, which he had often found more useful than any weapon.
Juniper Joe’s red shirt showed plainly in the niche, looking like a gout of blood, thus making it very suggestive. Buffalo Bill had been somewhat surprised to see Juniper Joe in full miner’s outfit, very different from the clothing he usually wore in the town.
For some time nothing had been heard from the Indians; but now the scout saw some of them on the top of the cañon wall, looking down at the injured man. Others appeared in sight at various points.
Buffalo Bill paid no attention to the Utes, though they did not seem friendly. They showed no disposition to help the injured man. In truth, even to consider such a thing seriously was an evidence of much courage; for Juniper Joe lay in a spot not to be approached at all without much danger.
The scout was not thinking of the possible danger, as he hastened along, looking for a point at which he could launch his lariat; his intention being, if he could find such a place, to hurl the rope at it, then swing out and over the cañon.
The cañon was of such depth that even to look down into it made one’s head swim.
In spite of this, when he had found a favorable finger of rock outthrust the scout swung the noose of his rope, and with a wonderful cast fastened it round the tip of the rocky projection on the other side.
“Here goes!” he said.
Clutching the rope, he ran forward, then flung himself boldly out over the black gulf. The momentum carried him across, so that his feet struck the opposite wall. As soon as he could steady the oscillation of the rope, he began to climb it, hand over hand.
Though they had shown some evidences of an unfriendly attitude, Buffalo Bill’s daring in going to the aid of Juniper Joe stilled the Indians into peace.
Slowly the scout climbed up the rope, over the dizzy chasm, mounting steadily until he gained the spot where Juniper Joe lay.
Then he saw that Juniper Joe was not only not dead, but treacherously inclined; the fellow’s eyes were blazing, and as Buffalo Bill swung into the notch at his side, Juniper Joe lifted himself and drove at the scout with a knife.
Though the surprise was stupendous, the scout was equal to the occasion; he dropped down on the treacherous scoundrel, and gripped him.
A struggle followed; but Juniper Joe had not recovered from the jarring effects of his fall, and the scout was quickly the victor.
Juniper Joe dropped back, panting and glaring.
“Curse you!” he fumed.
The scout had caught the fellow’s knife away, and now snatched away his revolvers.
“A pretty greeting for a man who risked his life to come up here!” he said bitterly.
“That’s all right!” growled Juniper Joe. “But what did ye come up for? Me, I reckon! You didn’t come jest to help me, I know.”
Then he realized that he had said too much.
“I’m kind o’ flighty,” he apologized; “so don’t think o’ what I’ve done. I didn’t really know it was you, Cody; ’pon honor, I didn’t. That jolt I got sort o’ put me out o’ my head. Hope you’ll overlook it.”
He rolled his eyes round, as if looking for the Indians.
“Those Utes won’t trouble you!”
“Mebby they won’t,” Juniper Joe grumbled; “but I ain’t wantin’ to chance it. Ye see, I onct had trouble with old Iron Bow.”
“You thought they shot at you and chased you?”
“I did.”
“Rest easy, then. They shot at a deer, or some game animal.”
“How do you know it?”
“I could tell by the way they yelled.”
“You’re thunderin’ smart, you think!”
Unnoting this insult, the scout tried to make an examination, to discover if Juniper Joe was much hurt.
“It’s jest my leg and right hip,” said the rascal; “feels like my leg is broke.”
“You couldn’t move it, if that was so.”
The fellow had been bruised by his heavy fall, and the breath had been jarred out of him, yet he was not hurt, otherwise.
“Oh, I think you’re all right!” the scout told him.
“What you goin’ to do?”
“Try to get you down from here.”
“I’m surprised to see you hyar,” said Juniper Joe, more mildly. “I don’t reckon you come out to see if Iron Bow is thinkin’ of war trailin’?”
“We’ll talk about that when we get you down from here,” the scout evaded.
Just then a whoop sounded; and, looking up, Buffalo Bill saw that the baron and Nomad had come in sight.
He stood up and waved his hand to them, that they might locate him; but at the same time he was careful not to give Juniper Joe a chance to push him out of the notch into the cañon. He was convinced that Juniper Joe might want to do that very thing.
“Who’s them?” asked Juniper Joe.
“My friends—the baron and old Nomad.”
Juniper Joe growled something in his throat.
“What was that?” the scout asked.
“Oh, nothin’! Lower me down, if you kin.”
“It’s going to be a hard job; you’re a heavy man.”
“Waal, then let me stay hyar!” the fellow growled.
The scout put the noose of the rope round Juniper Joe’s body, under the arms.
“I’ll try it,” he said, “if you’ve got the grit!”
Juniper Joe looked over the edge, and shivered.
“If anything should happen, I reckon I’d fetch up dead on them rocks down there.”
“I can get a pretty good grip, by locking a leg round this point of rock, and I think I can hold you; but the rope is strong enough to hold you, even if I should slip.”
“It’d cut me in two, if you should let go.”
“I suppose you’re willing for me to try it?”
The fellow looked over again.
“Go ahead!” he said, setting his jaws together. “I’ve got to git down out of this in some way.”
Helping himself, Juniper Joe slid over the edge of the notch, aided by the scout, the latter supporting him as he released his grip on the rock and dangled in midair.
It was a fine exhibition of muscular strength, when Buffalo Bill lowered the heavy body of Juniper Joe slowly down from the notch, letting it slide against the cañon wall.
There was a shelf below; and when Juniper Joe had gained that the scout directed him to cast off the noose.
“I’m coming down,” he announced. “But,” he warned, “no tricks! My pards are over there, you see; and they wouldn’t stand for treachery on your part.”
“Oh, I ain’t intendin’ any,” Juniper Joe growled back.
The scout swung out and lowered himself to the shelf.
The rope was left hanging, of course, with the noose hooked over the finger of rock. But the scout was a rope wizard. By some clever jerks, which made wavyripplesrun up the rope, he flipped it off the rocky point, and it dropped down.
He found another projection, to which he fastened the noose; and the performance was gone through again, this time bringing the scout and his prisoner to the bottom of the cañon.
When they got down there they found the baron and Nomad.