CHAPTER II.FOUL PLAY.
The reader, perhaps, will have recognized the baron from the description of him already given, and will know at once that he told Frieda the truth when he said he was a pard of Buffalo Bill’s.
The baron had been sojourning at Yuma—not in the penitentiary, as Bernritter insinuated—but in one of the town’s best hotels.
He had received a telegram saying that the scout would be in Phœnix at a certain time, and he had started for Phœnix. After several days of leisurely travel, halting betimes at ranches and settlements, Fate directed the German to the Three-ply Mine.
It was the baron’s intention to halt at the Three-ply merely long enough to water his horse and himself, and inquire his most direct road to his destination. But Frieda came out to give him his directions, and the baron’s heart began to pound like a trip-hammer.
Instead of asking which way he ought to go, the baron inquired if he could stay in the camp for a day or two, paying good money for his accommodation.FrauSchlagel, Frieda’s mother, kept all such money as her own perquisite, and the doughty baron was made welcome.
He stayed four days, and hung about the chuck-shanty nearly the entire time.
The baron wanted Frieda to become Mrs. Von Schnitzenhauser.Frieda declined the honor, but she did it in such a way as to give the baron grounds for hope.
At any rate, the baron went off whistling “Die Wacht am Rhein,” and so pleased was he with himself, and so wrapped up in his future prospects, that he did not notice the unusual sagging of one of his saddle-bags.
The baron rode slowly. He wanted to commune with himself, and a slow pace made it easier—likewise it made it easier for McGowan, Bernritter, and Jacobs to catch up with him.
“I vill meed Puffalo Pill in Phœnix,” thought the baron, “und I vill tell him how id vas. I haf peen a flying Dutchman long enough, und if Frieda vill haf me for vorse or pedder, den I vill kevit dis roaming pitzness und seddle down. I vill ged a leedle golt-mine somevere und dig goldt for a lifing, und Frieda vill take care oof der house for me, und eferyt’ing vill be schust so fine as I can’t tell. Py shinks, but I’m a lucky Dutchman!”
Just then the baron heard some one yelling at him from behind. He drew rein, and turned in his saddle.
“Himmelplitzen!” he muttered. “Dose fellers haf come from der Dree-ply Mine. Vone iss McGowan, who iss a pooty goot feller; und dere iss der suberintendent, who iss not so goot a feller, und Chacops, who iss vorse. Vat iss id dey vant oof me?”
While the baron sat his horse and waited, he had a foolish thought that made his heart skip a couple of beats.
“Vat oof Frieda has sent dem afder me to say dot she vill haf me, afder all?” the baron fondly asked himself. “Dot’s id, I ped you! Ach, py shimineddy, vat a luck id iss! Oof dere is anypody any blace any habbier dan vat I am, den I don’d know where!”
McGowan, Bernritter, and Jacobs came alongside the baron, and stood their horses in a triangle around him. Bernritter and Jacobs had each a hand pushed suggestively under his coat, but the baron was feeling so good with himself that he did not notice these ominous movements.
“How you vas, chentlemen?” cried the baron. “Vy you shace afder me like dot, hey? Meppy,” and here he gave a good-natured laugh, “you t’ink I chumped my poard-pill?”
“No,” said McGowan, “we don’t think you jumped your board-bill.”
“Meppy you t’ink I shtole someding?” went on the baron, shaking with mirth.
McGowan cast a startled look at Bernritter and Jacobs. That word “stole” was an unfortunate thing for the baron.
“Well,” said McGowan shortly, “did you?”
“Yah,” haw-hawed the baron, “you bed you I shtole someding. I shtole der heart oof dot pooty leedle Frieda, und I don’d gif id pack, neider.”
“Did you take anything else?” went on McGowan, his eye on the overweighted saddle-bag.
“Vell,” jested the baron, “I took my departure. Dot’s aboudt all.”
“What’s the matter with that saddle-bag of yours?”
The baron looked down at the bag.
“Py shinks,” he exclaimed, “id looks heafy, don’d id? I didn’t haf nodding heavy like dot in id. Derfraumust haf put in a loaf oof pread ven I vasn’t looking. Vell, oof she dit, id’s my pread, anyvay. Dit you pring me some messaches from Frieda, Misder McGowan?”
“No.”
“Und you don’d vant to dell me someding?”
“No.”
“Den vy der tickens you shtop me like dot? Clear oudt oof der vay und I vill rite on.”
The baron had had time, by now, to observe the peculiar actions of the men from the Three-ply. As he finished speaking he tried to spur his horse ahead.
Jacobs, however, blocked the forward movement by grabbing the bit-rings of the baron’s horse.
“You vill ged me madt in a minid,” said the baron. “Led go oof dot horse, or I vill gif you a piece oof my mind mit my fist. I don’d like dot ugly face oof yours, Chacops, und I vill put some marks all ofer id oof you don’t ged avay.”
The baron hauled back his right arm. Another moment and he found Bernritter glaring at him over the muzzle of a revolver.
“No rough-house work, Dutchy,” said Bernritter.
The baron was taken aback. But only for as long as it takes to bat an eye.
“Two can play at dot game!” he cried, and dropped his hand toward his belt.
“Do you want me to shoot?” snarled Bernritter.
“Easy, there, Schnitzenhauser,” spoke up McGowan; “I’ll have no shooting or rough work, but I want to see what you have in your saddle-bag.”
After the way the three men had come at him, the baron would not have shown the inside of his saddle-bags for a farm.
“I do vat I blease mit vat’s mine!” he shouted. “Youattend to my pitzness altogedder too mooch to suidt me, und dot’s all aboudt id. I’m der pard oof Puffalo Pill, undt olt Nick Nomat, und dis iss a free gountry, und I’ll do vat I vant, und nodding more.”
The baron, justly indignant, was only making matters worse for himself by refusing to reveal the contents of the bag.
Suddenly something happened. The baron was the cause of it. His fist shot out—not at Jacobs, but at the wrist of Bernritter’s pistol-hand.
The six-shooter was jarred from the super’s fingers into the dust of the trail.
Thwack!
Before Bernritter had recovered from the daze caused by the baron’s first blow, the baron’s knuckles fell a second time—now on the super’s left ear.
Bernritter was knocked off his horse as clean as though he had been dropped by a rifle-bullet.
With the second blow, the baron jabbed the irons into his horse. The animal gave a mad leap forward, directly against Jacobs’ horse.
The collision was tremendous.
Jacobs’ horse went to the knees, and Jacobs himself turned a half-somersault out of his saddle, landing on his head and shoulders, heels in the air.
This was doing pretty well for the baron. He might have got away from the Three-ply men if McGowan hadn’t taken a hand in the set-to. Reaching out swiftly, the mine-owner twined his hands in the baron’s collar and dragged him off his horse; then, falling on him where he lay on the ground, McGowan held the luckless Dutchman in that position.
“Look into the saddle-bag, Bern,” cried McGowan.
The super, whose head was still ringing from the effects of the blow on the ear, had regained his feet and was saying things.
Watched by McGowan, he unbuckled the straps of the saddle-bag, pushed in his hand, and drew out—the bar of yellow bullion.
“Ah!” cried McGowan, his voice like the snap of a whip, “the fellow’s a scoundrel, after all!”
“You might have known that, McGowan,” scowled Bernritter, “from the fight he put up to keep us from looking into the saddle-bag.”
“A rope, Jacobs!” ordered McGowan. “Bedad, we’re headed for Phœnix, and we’ll keep right on to the town and land this thief in the lock-up.”
The baron, dazed by the sight of the yellow bar, was unable to say a word. He did not protest, or disavow any evil intentions, for he was so dumfounded he could not speak. His silence, of course, looked like a tacit confession of guilt.
The whole cut-and-dried affair had worked out to the baron’s disadvantage and to the benefit of the scheming scoundrels, Bernritter and Jacobs.
They had shifted the responsibility of the theft of the cyanid bullion to the Dutchman: And might not McGowan think that he was in league with the red bullion thieves who were believed to be back of the other thefts of bullion?
The sharpest criminals are short-sighted as to one or two details, in even their cleverest trickery. Bernritter had overlooked the fact thatpossiblythe Dutchman might be a pard of Buffalo Bill’s; and, if this should prove tobe the case, then nothing could keep Buffalo Bill from getting into the game.
The baron, properly roped, was tied to his horse and led on across the desert in the direction of Phœnix.
He was still silent, but he was doing a lot of thinking.