CHAPTER XIII.THE NOTE AND THE ARROW.
“There’s not a particle of doubt, in my own mind, about Bernritter and Bascomb being somewhere in these Arizona hills, Buffalo Bill.”
“I won’t dispute the statement, McGowan, although it seems to me they would be smart enough to look after their own safety. After the way they were balked in that attempted robbery, they must know that this section of the country isn’t very healthful for them. I don’t think you need to worry, McGowan.”
“I’m not worrying about myself. I’ve looked out for Number One so long that I feel perfectly qualified to do it successfully. Nevertheless, I have a feeling—a vague and oppressive premonition, notion, call it what you will—that something is going wrong. That’s the reason I asked you to delay your departure from the mine last night. However, I don’t suppose I can reasonably insist on your remaining here much longer.”
“My old pard has been gone for several hours, McGowan, and Cayuse and I ought to be following him before long. He had business of some sort to attend to in Phœnix, and because of that he left in advance of us.”
“At least, Buffalo Bill, you can wait until Golightly gets back with my daughter. They ought to have got here some time ago, but I suppose the train was late, and that is what is delaying them.”
“Oh, well, if you desire it, Cayuse and I will wait until Golightly gets here with your daughter.”
The king of scouts and McGowan sat in the shade in front of the adobe office building.
McGowan was nervous. This was his natural temperament. The scout, in judging of his present state of mind, remembered how he had had three dreams concerning the bullion robberies, and how those dreams had come true—at least partially.
“You’re fretting too much over those robberies, McGowan,” admonished the scout. “Forget them. A man ought to teach himself to forget the things that wear on his nerves.”
“It isn’t the trouble here that wears on my nerves, Buffalo Bill; it’s the fact that Bernritter has proved himself a scoundrel; and the fact that Annie must be told of his duplicity when she gets here. I don’t know how the girl will take it. Certainly it will be a cruel blow for her, and one that will strike her like a bolt from the blue.”
“When she learns how unworthy Bernritter was of her regard,” said the scout reassuringly, “she will consider herself fortunate in escaping an alliance with such a man. She has reason to congratulate herself, and I believe she will look at it in that way.”
For the dozenth time McGowan got up, walked to the end of the office, and looked off along the Black Cañon trail in the direction along which his daughter and Golightly would come on their way from Phœnix. But still his anxious eyes failed to see anything of the star-faced cayuses and the buckboard. He turned back to Buffalo Bill, shaking his head forebodingly.
“Faith,” he remarked, with a strained laugh, “I don’t know what’s the matter with me, but I’m all on edge. If you ever had premonitions——”
“I have had,” interrupted the scout, “but I never allowed them to make me uncomfortable. Life’s too short to spend it borrowing trouble, or in crossing bridges before you get to them. If I were you——”
The scout himself was interrupted. Something hummed through the air with a shrillswish-h-hthat made itself plain in spite of the throbbing of the mill-stamps; and the swishing sound was finished with a quickspatagainst the door of the office.
Both the scout and the mine-owner turned their eyes quickly to the door. A long, thin arrow was quivering in the wood, a bit of white paper, compactly folded, bound to it midway of its length.
“Ugh! Him Apache arrow!”
The speaker was Little Cayuse. He had appeared from around the office as suddenly as had the arrow.
Buffalo Bill’s quick eye discerned the scrap of paper, and his quick wit immediately inferred that the arrow had been launched by some one who was afraid to appear in person in the camp and bring a message.
“Cayuse!” said he.
“Wuh!” said Little Cayuse.
“See if you can locate the Apache who fired that arrow.”
The boy leaped back, studied the inclination of the shaft, whirled and swept his eyes over the hills, using the inclination as a clue, and then started off at a rapid pace.
“Why do you send him to look for the Apache?” asked McGowan.
“Because any Apache now loose in the hills is a renegade,” was the answer, “and may have had a hand in the dastardly work engineered by Bascomb and Bernritter. That arrow brings a message.”
“We might first have examined the message, Buffalo Bill, before you sent Little Cayuse after the Indian.”
“It would then have been too late. It may be too late now. The Apache who launched the arrow is undoubtedly making the best use of his legs to get out of the vicinity.”
The scout stepped to the arrow and, with an exertion of considerable strength, pulled its steel point from the wood. Next he untied the folded paper, dropped the arrow, and began opening out the paper so he could read it.
Before he read a word he looked toward McGowan. The mine-owner, drooping limply in his chair, was shaking like a man in an ague fit.
“Why, McGowan,” cried the scout, “what ails you?”
“Nothing but—premonitions,” returned McGowan huskily, making an attempt to straighten up. “Go on, Buffalo Bill. Read that message. Something tells me that the lightning is going to strike.”
The scout read the message first to himself. It ran as follows:
“McGowan: Your daughter is in our hands, and we have a place where we can keep her safely, defying you and Buffalo Bill and his pards to find her. You will never see her again unless you give a written promise not to proceed against us on account of that attempted robbery, and unless you leave a five-pound bar of bullion at the mouth of the deserted shaft three miles north of the Three-ply, just off the Black Cañon trail. Both the written promise and the bullion to be left at the deserted shaft at midnight to-night. It is neck or nothing with us,and we mean business.“Bascomb and Bernritter.”
“McGowan: Your daughter is in our hands, and we have a place where we can keep her safely, defying you and Buffalo Bill and his pards to find her. You will never see her again unless you give a written promise not to proceed against us on account of that attempted robbery, and unless you leave a five-pound bar of bullion at the mouth of the deserted shaft three miles north of the Three-ply, just off the Black Cañon trail. Both the written promise and the bullion to be left at the deserted shaft at midnight to-night. It is neck or nothing with us,and we mean business.
“Bascomb and Bernritter.”
Buffalo Bill was dumfounded by this message. The first question he asked himself was whether or not it might be a “bluff.” Then, when he recalled that McGowan’s daughter was long overdue from Phœnix, he knew that the fact pointed to the two white scoundrels successfully accomplishing the stroke mentioned in the note, viz.: the capture, in some way, of the person of Miss McGowan.
The scout hesitated to read the message to McGowan. Noting his hesitation, and auguring dire things from it, McGowan gave a wild cry and flung himself toward the scout.
“What is it?” he demanded; “tell me, quick! I can stand anything better than uncertainty.”
“Sit down,” said the scout sternly. “Get the whip-hand of yourself, McGowan, and, if it will be any comfort to you, just remember that Buffalo Bill and his pards will stand by you, and see you safely out of the trouble.”
“You will?” cried McGowan, with an air of intense relief. “I could ask for nothing more than that, Buffalo Bill. I am calm enough now to stand anything. Go on with the message.”
Buffalo Bill read it slowly. McGowan, with set face and nervously clenching hands, missed not a word.
So far from being cast down, he threw back his shoulders as though suddenly relieved from a burden.
“Now,” he observed, “we have something tangible to go on, some object at which to point our efforts. Hazy forebodings are unsettling; it is only when we know the truth, no matter how grievous it is, that we are able to lay out our work and get busy. With you to help me, Buffalo Bill, I know that Annie will be rescued from the hands of those two infamous villains, Bascomb and Bernritter.Already I am beginning to breathe more freely. But—what are we to do?”
“That is something to be thought about and carefully planned.”
“I could make out a written notice that no steps would be taken against Bascomb and Bernritter, and could leave it, with a five-pound bar of bullion, at the mouth of the old shaft——”
“Personally,” cut in the scout, “I prefer to fight the devil with fire. Bascomb and Bernritter deserve a penitentiary sentence, and I would not allow their plot to succeed.”
“But if any harm should come to Annie——”
“Of course, that is what most concerns you. It is your affair, so do not let my own sentiments stand in the way of your doing what you think best.”
McGowan got up and began pacing the ground in front of the office. Before he arrived at a conclusion, the scout saw two horses and three riders descending into the valley from the Black Cañon trail.
One of the riders was a woman; the other two, mounted on one horse, consisted of old Nomad and Golightly.
Old Nomad would not be returning to the Three-ply unless he had something of importance to communicate; and he would not be bringing Golightly unless the Irishman also had an important report.
“McGowan!” called the scout; “come this way.”
The mine-owner hastened to the scout’s side, and followed the scout’s pointing finger with his eyes.
“Why,” muttered McGowan, “it’s Nomad and Golightly! Why is Nomad coming back? And where’sGolightly’s buckboard and cayuses? Here’s a puzzle, and no mistake.”
“It’s a puzzle, then, that soon will be solved,” returned the scout. “Who’s the girl?”
“Dell of the Double D,” answered McGowan; “Dell Dauntless, a friend of Annie’s.”
The scout, impressed by the girl’s beauty, but somewhat disappointed by the sight of her showy apparel and accouterments, watched the party approach.
Now, at last, he felt sure, they were to get developments worth while.