CHAPTER XI.THE DYNAMITER AGAIN.
Buffalo Bill reached the hotel at Bozeman late that night, and learned that Little Cayuse had not returned. He also, by careful inquiry, discovered that the doctor was in Virginia City.
After a brief halt for food and rest for himself and horse, the scout pushed on to the mountains southward, for he was anxious regarding Wild Bill’s condition, and he half hoped that Little Cayuse had returned there.
It was halfway from midnight to daylight when the scout was challenged by the stern:
“Halt, dar! Who be yeh?”
“It’s all right, Skibo.”
“Bless my soul; it’s Mars’ Billyum hisse’f! We’s pow’ful glad, too, Mars’ Billyum; dat’s what we is.”
“What is going wrong, Skibo?”
“Eberyting jes nachally gone to de debil, Mars’ Billyum.”
“What is it, Skibo; is Hickok worse?”
“No; but he’s so mad he jes’ can’t hol’ him skin ober ’is bones.”
“Well, well, what is it all about, Skibo?”
“In de fust place, Nomad he done git oneasy, an’ jes’ nachally couldn’t stan’ it. So he done mount Hide-rack an’ slide out, an’ we hain’t seen him no mo’. Den, jes’ ’fore midnight dat measly pris’ner wiggle outen his rope an’ skedaddle. Mars’ Hickok done discober ’im jes’ in time to wing ’im. But ’e got erway, swearin’ awful.”
“Cayuse hasn’t, returned?” asked the scout.
“No, sah; we hain’t seen ’im sence yo’ an’ he went away dat mawnin’, Mars’ Billyum.”
They were approaching the little shelter where the Laramie man had lain during his convalescence, and found the latter in no pleasant mood.
Hickok related the story of Bloody Ike’s escape, and told how old Nomad had gone away, promising to return in a short time.
Hickok’s condition was so much improved that he proposed to ride into town that morning, but the scout advised against it.
The scout himself was worn out from his wearying work of the last forty-eight hours and scanty opportunities for rest. He decided to sleep for a few hours, and then set out in search of Nomad and Cayuse.
Hickok remained on guard, and with the first streak of light was scanning the plains, hoping for a glimpse of the fleeing Bloody Ike; but if that worthy had left the hills he had reached town during the hours of darkness.
Before setting out in the morning Buffalo Bill got all the particulars of Nomad’s departure and where he was last seen to disappear behind the table-land near the town. The scout cautioned Hickok and Skibo to be constantly on guard against their late prisoner. He feared that Bloody Ike had not left the hills and would attempt some sort of vengeance. So Cody cautioned them to keep well behind the rocks where Ike could not pick them off from a distance with a rifle and to be ready for an attempted bomb throwing. The scout knew that the former boss of mine explosives would welcome the opportunity to blow them all into eternity.
The scout readily found the place where old Nomad had met the enemy and guessed that the trapper had been ambushed and overpowered there. But he saw noblood, and decided that Nick had been made a prisoner and was perhaps somewhere in the vicinity now, under guard.
As he studied his surroundings he heard the shrill neigh of a horse. Bear Paw threw up his head, and would have answered, but the scout clapped a hand over his horse’s nose. He then slipped on a muzzle he had used before, and, leading Bear Paw into a dense thicket, hitched him there, and began further investigation on foot.
Once more the whinny of a horse reached him, and the scout had no doubt it must be Hide-rack. He knew it was not the call of an Indian pony.
At last he gently pushed aside the thick foliage and peered into a little clearing where Hide-rack was alternately feeding and sniffing the air in the direction of the place where Bear Paw was tethered.
Carefully scanning the little opening, the scout saw that a few rods beyond was another, farther in among the rocks. Keeping to the thickest part of the growth, he skirted the first opening, and approached the other. And then Cody heard:
“Say, ye pizen red helgominian heifercat, why don’t ye do suthin’? Ye set thar an’ smok’ yerself black in ther face an’ never offer me er pipe.”
The scout peeped out and saw his pard trussed up like a pig for market, while near him sat a solitary guard, pulling at a red clay pipe.
The Indian was as motionless and silent as a statue as Nomad kept up his tirade of abuse. Buffalo Bill noiselessly left the cover and approached the Indian’s back.
Old Nomad saw and understood. He increased his torrent of invective to cover the noise of a possible slip of Pa-e-has-ka’s moccasin.
But there was no discovery until the scout’s sinewy hand slipped around the Indian’s throat, and the silent struggle was soon ended.
The redskin was unharmed, but bound firmly, then gagged, and left in the place lately occupied by the trapper.
Buffalo Bill asked the Indian if his companions would return at night, and received an affirmative nod, so he and Nomad rode away to the hills again.
That night the scout himself remained on guard and sent Nomad, Hickok, and Skibo to rest. Cody was somewhat anxious regarding Little Cayuse, and he felt confident that Bloody Ike was still in that region and would attempt some sort of an attack on the party.
The shelter of brush and blankets was in a thicket of stunted willow, which grew on a sort of stair of the mountain. Ten rods away was an entrance to the abandoned mine. Along one side and four or five rods away was a fall of sixty or seventy feet. On the other side and not more than three rods from camp was another “rise” of thirty to fifty feet.
The scout had cautioned his pards to stick close to the thicket, in which were great blocks of rocks in uneven, toppling piles. Here they were comparatively safe from the bullets of a lurking enemy on the heights above. The scout believed that Bloody Ike knew every turn of the old mine, and as a hiding place it could hardly have an equal. A man with guns and ammunition could defy an army. He could bob up in unexpected places and pick off a man and then disappear.
As soon as it was dark the scout stole out of camp and climbed to a good position upon the rocks above. There he lighted his pipe and settled down to a solitary vigil. In the shadow of a clump of bushes he could notbe seen, while he commanded a view of the moonlit rocks all about him, and from where he sat he could see both entrances to the old mine.
The scout turned over in his mind the incidents of the last few days, and wondered at the rapidity of developments. He was opposing a well-organized gang, as every incident indicated. In the attempt to decoy him to his death the villains had made use of a small cannon as a signal. There were not only white rascals in the gang, but they had enlisted the services of various bands of Indians such as the one which had captured Nomad. The members of the gang, or at least some of them, placed no value on human existence. A man’s life would be taken with as little compunction as that caused by the killing of a snake or a rat.
“What in the name of common sense is that?”
The scout’s muttered exclamation had been called forth by something which came into view on the bare, flat top of the mountain beyond and above the upper entrance to the mine.
It was a gray object, the very color of the rock along which it moved noiselessly, and could not have been distinguished had it not been outlined against the sky beyond.
The thing was moving toward the edge of the descent very slowly, as though having no object in life whatever.
It was a shapeless mass, anyway, or seemed to be, perhaps distorted by the moonlight and its own shadow. From all the scout could make out it might be a small haystack or a cord of wood out for a ramble.
With rifle ready, for the scout was suspicious of this peculiarity, he watched the thing approach the very edge of the precipice and pause. There it rested, minute after minute, as motionless as the rock itself, until the scoutbegan to wonder if it had not all been an optical illusion, and that he had been glaring at a great bowlder perched on the brink of the abyss.
The scout rubbed his eyes, glanced away for a moment, and then looked back.
Again he was surprised into a smothered exclamation.
The thing had grown a head. But its head was in proportion to its size as that of a turtle. And it had grown out of the flat top of the body—it was still growing.
The head was followed by a pair of human shoulders, and then an arm was raised aloft, and in the hand was an object plainly outlined against the sky.
It was the head, shoulders, and arms of a man, and the arm was about to hurl something into the bushes far below.
Like lightning the scout’s rifle went into position, and just as the arm launched its missile there was a sharp crack, followed instantly by a thunderous roar and blinding flash at the crest of the mountain.
When the smoke had cleared away and the scout’s eyes became accustomed to the moonlight again, he saw that the strange craft of the clifftop had been wrecked. And out of the wreck an animated object was moving along the bare rock. Then the moving thing sprang into a human form and ran along the rocks for a short distance to disappear where the strange object had first appeared to the scout.
Buffalo Bill had again raised his rifle, but lowered it with a chuckle.
“Guess Bloody Ike got a surprise party that time,” he said.
Down below old Nomad sang out:
“Are ye all right, Buffler?”
“Yes; go to sleep again. I don’t think you will be disturbed again to-night.”
The scout climbed to the top of the rock and examined the wreck. It had been a hogshead heavily padded with cotton waste and blankets in an attempt at bullet-proof construction. Holes in the ends had been sawn out below for the feet of the occupant and in the top for a peep hole, and from which to shoot or hurl missiles.
Bloody Ike had attempted to throw a bomb into the camp of his enemies, and Buffalo Bill’s bullet had caught it just as it left the rascal’s hand. The explosion had destroyed the bullet-proof craft.