CHAPTER XIV.A WORRIED SHERIFF.
The express office and Gopher Gabe’s saloon were robbed that night.
Matt Shepard, sheriff and jailer, brought the news to Buffalo Bill, at the Eagle House.
“I didn’t think they’d strike so soon,” he said. “That is, if it was them done it. But Benson has got nerve enough fer anything.”
Shepard was “sore” over the way Benson had overreached him.
“There has been other robberies, though—while Juniper Joe was in the jail; and of course them couldn’t be charged againsthim.”
He had taken a seat in the scout’s room in his best chair, and now helped himself from the box of cigars on the table. Nomad was in the room, and so was the baron.
“What do you think of this chap they call the Fool of Folly Mountain?” he asked abruptly.
“What doyouthink of him?” Buffalo Bill returned.
“Well, it’s suspicious, the way he is doin’. There’s a whole lot of fellers in town ready to swear that he is up to road-agent tricks, and that what he’s doin’, er pretendin’ to do up there, is jest a blind. I dunno about it myself, but I’m watchin’ him. I was up there yesterday, after Juniper Joe got past me, lookin’ round.”
Buffalo Bill seemed amused.
“You didn’t find Juniper Joe there, of course?”
“No. Hardly expected that I would; but I wanted a peek at the things that feller’s doin’. He’s rigged up a little place where he assays stuff frum his mine, so he says. I think it’s a bluff. I seen some of the gold he took down to the express office which he claimed he got out of his mine by some new and secret process; it was just gold fused together. He could hold up stages and travelers, git their gold ore, and turn it into solid pieces that way, couldn’t he?”
“Easy enough, I should think,” the scout admitted.
“So I’ve about arrive at the conclusion that’s what he’s doin’,” the sheriff averred, biting off a piece of his cigar. “I think I’ll have some men set to watch his cabin.”
“Er, waugh!” Nomad snorted.
The sheriff gave him a sharp look.
“Jest got a frog in my throat,” the trapper explained. “I’m tuck thet way et times.”
The baron sucked silently at his long-stemmed pipe, and the expression of his face was as cast iron as he could make it.
“It come to me,” the sheriff went on, “after I’d started fer this place, that maybe this fool on the mountain was into that game last night, instead of Juniper and Benson. Though at first I was sure it was them; and that they had done it more as a exhibition of clear sand than to git the money.”
He studied the face of Buffalo Bill.
“What’s your idea?”
“That it was the work of Juniper Joe and Benson.”
“Then you don’t credit the idea that the Fool o’ Folly Mountain may have turned the trick?”
“I don’t.”
“Do you think he’s giving the public a square deal? Don’t you think he is lyin’?”
Buffalo Bill seemed to ponder this.
“I’m interested in watching that fellow,” he said. “So, if you’ll just leave his case with me, it will be a favor.”
The sheriff was glad enough to get it off his hands, he said; he had now so many irons in the fire that he was burning some of them. But he declared that in the end Buffalo Bill would discover that the Fool of Folly Mountain was playing a huge double game and profiting by it.
“That’s the opinion of the town, is it?” the scout asked.
“Nearly every one is comin’ round to that belief. So it wouldn’t surprise me if a mob marched up there some night and took him out and hung him. We’ve had too much hold-up work round hyer. And the town is sore over the way it was fooled by Benson and Juniper Joe. The people ain’t goin’ to be easy with the next feller that runs a bluff like that.”
Buffalo Bill laughed.
“I guess there never was a community more cleverly sold,” he remarked.
“And they ain’t any notion o’ bein’ sold ag’in.”
“Y’ cain’t blame ’em,” Nomad commented, as if he felt he ought to do some of the talking. “Even Buffler was tuck in complete.”
“Budt only at fairst,” corrected the German, coming to the scout’s defense.
“What I’m up hyer fer mainly,” said the sheriff, “is to git your idea of what move I’d better make. JuniperJoe and Benson are partners once more. What deviltry them two can’t hatch up when they’re together there’s no tellin’. They’ll shore go back to the road if they haven’t already. I’d like to lay ’em by the heels.”
“The only thing that can be done for a time,” the scout answered, “aside from keeping up a continual watch, is to stop shipments of gold out of Blossom Range until they have been apprehended.”
“Which would tie up the business of the camp,” Shepard objected.
“But it’s better policy to keep the gold here than to lose it. Yet there is one other thing that can be done: that is to send such a strong guard with every stage that goes through that the road agents won’t dare hold it up.”
“You see, speakin’ gin’rally, we figger that we’re workin’ ag’inst jest two men,” said the sheriff; “when, as a matter of fact, we don’t know how many we’re up ag’inst. Benson and Juniper Joe, in my opinion, has got scores of men who will help ’em, right hyer in this camp. I remember two months ago, when Benson was workin’ the road, we tried sendin’ through strong guards with the stages. There wastenmen on one stage that was held up in the cañon jest t’other side o’ Stag Mountain. But there wastwentyof the road agents that held it up. Five of the guards was shot dead in the fight, two more wounded, and the whole shipment was lost. They even took the stage horses. That’s the kind of men we’ve got to deal with.”
He knocked the ashes from his cigar, swung one leg over the other, and went on:
“Then there’s the Utes. They ain’t road agents, butthey’re treacherous devils, and they hide the road agents. They do it because the agents supplies ’em with whisky and amm’nition. Old Iron Bow, the Ute chief, is as big a rascal as ever walked on two legs, and the most of his waryers air jest like him.
“Three weeks ago, when I was after Jimmy Blood, I had a tip that he had hiked to Iron Bow and that the chief was hidin’ him. So I goes up there with a gang of my men at my back, and demands him. The chief he gives me the laugh; says ’t no white man ain’t been in that village for a month. I wanted to search the tepees, but he wouldn’t let me. I didn’t dare try it without his consent; I didn’t have men enough, in the first place, and, in the second, if I’d got the Utes started, there’d been a merry old party; it might ’a’ put ’em on the warpath, and I didn’t care to take that risk. Jimmy was there, I reckon; but he made a sneak afterwards, and got out of the country. He was heard of, anyway, over in Albuquerque.”
He paused for breath.
“So,” he added, “that’s the situation. If any one reckons that bein’ sheriff of this county is a snap, let him take another think. It’s plantin’ gray hairs in my head fast enough, I tell you; which is maybe because I try to play square and do my whole duty.”
He was on the point of recurring to the subject of the possibility of apprehending Benson and Juniper Joe, when there was a tap on the door that stayed him.
When Buffalo Bill opened the door in answer to the knock he saw a veiled woman.
“May I come in?” she said, looking past him.
But when she was inside and beheld the sheriff she seemed on the point of making a retreat.
“I’ll go, madam,” said Shepard, rising, “if you think you can talk better without me bein’ here.”
“No; stay!” she said, after hesitating. “Perhaps it is just as well that you should hear what I’ve come to say to Mr. Cody.”
Buffalo Bill had put out a chair for her. When she took it she lifted her veil and revealed herself as Vera Bright.
The woman looked about the room, then fixed her eyes on Buffalo Bill, though she gave a glance now and then in the direction of the sheriff.
“I think I can guess what Mr. Shepard is here for,” she said, making her beginning. “It concerns the escape of Juniper Joe from prison.”
“You’ve hit the nail straight on the head, madam,” Shepard admitted. “That’s a thing that’s worryin’ me a whole lot right now.”
He was trying to study the face of the woman, as he had an idea that she bore him no good will, for the reason that he had held her in Blossom Range at a time when she was very anxious to get away.
But the study of her face could not reveal much. The paint and powder were laid on too thick for that. Her abundant hair was blondined, or false—perhaps both. But artificial as she was in appearance, she seemed at the moment at least to be in earnest.
“I think I can perhaps give information of value,” she declared, “if I am assured that I shall be shielded.”
“I think we can promise that, so far as the men in this room are concerned,” the scout assured her.
“I don’t know that Mr. Shepard will be likely to think that anything I say can be believed,” she said. “He remembers that I lied to him when I was brought back from Calumet Wells; but I wanted to get away, then, and so thought I had cause for lying. But in this case it’s different. I’ve got a good reason for telling the truth.”
She turned to Buffalo Bill.
“I don’t need to tell you why Tim Benson killed John Ward, as you know all about it. But you may not know that when he killed him he made me his deadly enemy.”
“I had guessed as much,” the scout told her.
“So, now that Benson is still hanging round here, and he and Juniper Joe are again together, I want to tell you to watch the saloon of Gopher Gabe.”
“We have been doing something in that line already,” the scout told her.
“Then you have suspected Gopher Gabe?”
“Perhaps I shouldn’t say as much as that; but resorts like his are always to be held in suspicion. Even if the proprietor is straight, such a place draws shady characters of all kinds.
“Perhaps you do not know,” he added, “that Gopher Gabe’s place was robbed last night.”
Her surprise showed, even under her paint and powder.
“I was not aware of it.”
“The post office shared the same fate,” he told her.
“It puzzles me,” she said; “for that would indicate that the robbers were not friends of Gopher Gabe.”
“And you had thought they were?”
“Yes, I thought so.”
“The robbery at Gopher Gabe’s may have been a mere blind, madam,” said Shepard. “I’ve known o’ the like.”
“That would explain it.”
She turned back to the scout.
“There is one other thing I wanted to mention,” she said. “This new man up on the hill that they speak of as the Fool has been visiting Gopher Gabe’s place. I saw him go in there only yesterday.”
“That so?” said Shepard. “You know, Cody, I said I had been suspectin’ that feller. He’s crooked.”
“He is gambling at Gopher Gabe’s,” said the woman. “One of the girls with the company here has told me that. I am sure he is in with Gopher Gabe’s gang.”
“It seems to be an important bit of evidence,” the scout admitted.
“Yaw, I pedt you!” gulped the German.
“I’m allowin’ et seems ter be,” Nomad added.
“You’ll all come round to my opinion of that feller after a while,” the sheriff declared confidently. “I’m goin’ to—— But I forgot, Cody, that you asked me to keep my hands off him; that you wanted to handle that part of the thing yourself.”
“That is my wish,” the scout admitted.
“You knew that Gopher Gabe is interested in the Casino?” said the woman.
“Yes,” the scout told her.
“The two are connected. The waiters go from the saloon to the wine rooms back of the Casino through an alley leading from the rear of the saloon. The distance is but a few steps.”
The scout nodded.
“And of course if the waiters can go through there other people can, from the wine rooms to the saloon. My suggestion is, if you could get a man in there as one of the waiters, and have him watch, some revelations would come that would surprise you.”
“It might be done,” said Shepard, straightening up in his chair as the idea struck him; “though jest now I don’t know how we could work it to get a man in there.”
She laughed unpleasantly, and suggested, as if she did not mean it, that some night they might rap one of the waiters on the head, and then put a man in his place.
Nomad, who was sitting near the door, now made a sudden dive at it, breaking the conversation abruptly; then flung the door open and raced along the hall. They heard the click of his revolver as he cocked it, and his bawling command to some one to stop; and heard, likewise, the pattering of feet.
The incident brought up every one in the room. Buffalo Bill and Shepard jumped to the door; the baron tumbled out of his chair, dropping his pipe; and the woman stood up nervously.
Nomad soon returned, grunting and fuming.
“Waugh!” he breathed. “Thar was a critter out thar eavesdrappin’. I heard him breathin’, by the lower aidge o’ the door, as he listened, and jumped fer him; but he was too quick fer me. I might ’a’ shot him as he skedaddled, but I didn’t hardly want ter do et; an’ when I got ter the foot o’ the stairs, he was clean gone.”
“An eavesdropper!” the woman cried, shaken with the agitation of sudden fear.
“I guess we’ll have to loaf round out in the hall whilewe continue this talk,” the scout said to Nomad. “It’s a thing we ought to have done before.”
“Wonder who the skunk was?” puffed the sheriff.
“Some one who had a good reason for wanting to know what was being said in here, you may be certain,” the scout told him.
“Vale, he vor shure heardt vot you vos saying apoudt putting somepoty in der blace uff one uff dose vaiters,” the baron reminded.
“Yes, I reckon he must have heard that,” admitted Shepard.
“Which means that we’ll not be able to do it now,” said the scout. “If he was a friend of Gopher Gabe, which seems likely, of course Gabe would be looking for a trick of that kind now, and block it promptly.”
The scout saw that the woman still seemed frightened.
“I was going to make a request of you, and I shall still make it,” he said, “though what has happened may cause you to think the thing will be dangerous. I take it for granted that you want to get even with Tim Benson for killing Ward.”
Her courage seemed to come back with a bound.
“It seems to me,” she said, with her first show of emotion, “that I would be willing to give my life for that!”
“You will not have to give your life, I am sure; yet you will have to assume some risk in doing what I suggest. That is that you rejoin the show company you were with, which is still at the Casino. I think that would put you in a position where you could do some spying on Gopher Gabe’s place to good advantage.”
“That certainly would be at the risk of my life, after what that eavesdropper must have heard,” she told him.
“But are you willing to try it?”
She drew a deep breath; then for a moment or so was silent.
“Yes,” she said, “I will try it; I’ll rejoin the company, if the manager will take me back.”
“I think he will do that. If he isn’t willing, a little money given to him quietly will work it. Yet I hardly need to say to you that in my opinion he will consider that you are worth more to him now than ever. You understand what I mean. Everybody has been talking about your supposed connection with the road agents. Could there be a better advertisement, from the manager’s standpoint?”
Shepard slapped his knee.
“Jest the ticket!” he said. “If the lady will consent to it.”
She was silent again, as if thinking this over.
“I can try it,” she declared quietly, rising. “But don’t forget that what I came here for was to ask you to watch Gopher Gabe’s. I will do what I can, from the Casino side, if I get the chance; but you men ought to be able to do a good deal more from the outside.”
The scout was on his feet as she turned to the door.
“Remember,” he said, “that while we are watching, we will take means to protect you as far as we can. We are anxious to get Benson.”
“And mighty anxious to get Juniper Joe back in the jail,” added the sheriff.
She stopped in the doorway, turning to the scout.
“I may want to communicate with you. I shall use the post office if I do. I supposethatcan be trusted?”
Nomad had come back to the door, along the hall.
“Nothin’ kin be trusted in this hyer thievin’ town!” he declared.
She smiled on the old trapper with what must have been something of a remnant of her vanished coquetry.
“Not even me?” she said.
Then she hurried along the hall and left the hotel, pulling her veil down as she did so.
Nomad came on into the room, after a steady look at her back.
“Waugh!” he said, flinging himself into a chair. “Is she playin’ fa’r er otherwise? Mebby so; I dunno.”
“Nomat, I am mit you,” declared the baron. “Vhen I rememper my vife, vot was so sveet yoost pefore ve vos marriet, unt den vos a she-tiger yoost afdher ve vos marriet, I ton’dt dake no stocks in enny vomans.”
Buffalo Bill laughed.
“She will play fair while it is to her interest to do so, and just now she thinks it is to her interest.”
“Well,” drawled Shepard, “we can watch her while we’re watchin’ other people. But I’d like to know who it was had his nose stuck under the door hyer while we was talkin’.”
“It looked to me,” said Nomad, “like the back o’ White-eyed Moses.”