CHAPTER XXIX.PARTING WITH THE GIRL PARD.
The detachment, with Doyle and the scout and his pards in the lead, rode down to meet Little Cayuse.
The boy’s eyes were sparkling with excitement and satisfaction as they roved from the scout to the girl, and from the girl to the trapper.
A halt was made when Navi came nose to nose with the leading mounts of the detachment.
“How?” called Cayuse, shaking hands with the scout and his pards, and holding Nomad’s hand rather longer than he did the others.
“How yerself, ye leetle fistful o’ glory?” demanded Nomad. “You an’ me, Cayuse, hev got ter git tergether, afore long, an’ beg each other’s parding. You done me a mean trick, an’ I done you ther same, although neither o’ us meant et. Everythin’ hes turned out all ter ther good, howsumever, so I reckons we kin call ther account square, hey?”
“Wuh,” answered Cayuse.
“Where have you been since we separated, boy?” asked the scout, when they were all riding on together toward the horses.
“Water heap bad medicine,” said Cayuse. “Me forget heap lots about last sleep; just begin to remember when sun come up. Me up on hill, looking down in valley. See heap cayuse, plenty others more than Bear Paw, Silver Heels, and Navi. No savvy so many cayuses. No see um Injuns ’round, although plenty sure cayusesApache cayuses. Me wait on hill. Then me come down in valley. Pa-e-has-ka come for Bear Paw, I know. So I stay.”
“Is that all?” asked the scout.
“Wuh!”
Buffalo Bill was a little disappointed, as he had been hoping Cayuse might be able to throw some light on the Apaches who had come to the valley and had plainly drunk of the water in the pool. When the mutineers had visited the place and put out their horses, however, Cayuse had been under the influence of Geronimo’s drug himself. So it was not to be supposed that he had discovered anything.
When the detachment came near enough to give the Indian cayuses a good sizing, Doyle sat back in his saddle and laughed loudly.
“Say, but this is a caution!” he cried.
“How do you mean?”
“Why, I and my men bag these horses, Cody, see? We take them to Bonita and keep them there. When the Apaches get over the effects of the drugged water, they’ll come here to find their mounts—and they’ll be disappointed. Nothing takes the tuck out of a renegade like foot-work under a hot sun. Mark what I say, every last one of this detachment of original reservation-jumpers will flock into Bowie and give themselves up. Oh, I don’t know! There’s more ways than one to skin a rabbit.”
Further satisfaction was awaiting the scout and the girl, for they discovered their riding-gear close to the place where they had left it. Although it was quite evident that the gear had been overhauled by the Apaches, nothing had been taken away.
“Geronimo’s doctored water got in its work, Dell,” laughed the scout, “before the Apaches could exercise reason enough to get away with our horses and their trappings.”
“Such a cross-play of fortune couldn’t happen more than once in a thousand times!” declared Dell.
“In er million, more like,” said Nomad, pawing over a lot of Indian blankets to get the best one for the buckskin. “I got ter ride without er saddle,” he went on, “till I git whar I kin buy one. Some one o’ Geronimo’s bucks prob’ly has my own ridin’-gear by now. ’Course ther reds thet ambushed us stripped ther hoss.”
“You can wager they did, Nomad,” returned Dell. “It takes an Apache to tell a good saddle and bridle when he sees them.”
“An’ et don’t take him long ter seize ’em, nuther, onless ye happen ter be lookin’.”
When Bear Paw, Silver Heels, and the buckskin were in readiness, and while the troopers were collecting the Indian cayuses and stringing them together, the scout and the lieutenant stood by the pool.
It had filled to the brim, since the Apaches had paid their visit.
“Geronimo must have had a powerful lot of dope put in there, Cody,” said Doyle. “You and your party emptied the pool, didn’t you?”
“Yes, nearly.”
“It filled up again in time for the Apaches, and after they left it has filled up and been running over. Probably there’s enough of the drug in there now to put us out of balance if we took a drink. If I didn’t have all these cayuses to look after, I’d be tempted to take a swig.”
“You’d be a mighty foolish man if you did,” admonished the scout. “Better leave such things as this alone.”
“I guess that’s right,” agreed Doyle, returning to his horse and mounting.
As he rode off, Buffalo Bill saw him cast a half-regretful look over his shoulder at the pool.
Late that afternoon, the scout and his pards, and the detachment, rode into Bonita with the horses of the Apaches, and all hands were able to take their fill of comfort and congratulate themselves on their success in the work they had set out to accomplish.
But little more remains to be told, so far as the wind-up of the scout’s work, in connection with the deserter, Bascomb, is concerned.
The man was dead, and was no more to be reckoned with.
As the scout had already informed Dell, he did not intend to take the field against Geronimo, as there were plenty to do that.
Buffalo Bill’s duty called him and Nomad and Little Cayuse to other parts, and they could not long delay answering the call.
The military telegraph between Bonita, Bowie, and Grant had been repaired by the time the scout and his pards regained Bonita, and the first message sent through by Colonel Grayson asked after Dell.
Dell herself answered the message. Patterson, in a hospital at Bowie, sent his report of the trip from Grant to Bonita, and it followed closely on the heels of Dell’s message to the colonel. After hearing of the girl’s daring and bravery, the colonel sent another telegram to Dell,forgiving her for the way she broke out of Fort Grant, and asking her to come back and finish her visit.
But Dell did not go back. An opportunity offered for her to accompany a detachment of troopers bound for Fort Whipple. As this detachment would pass near the Double D Ranch, Dell decided to go along.
The parting of the girl with Buffalo Bill, Nomad, and Cayuse was the occasion of much regret for all. The plucky and daring Dell had won her way to the hearts of the scout and his pards, and they hated to lose her.
“Perhaps,” said Dell, with a little catch in her voice, “we shall meet up with each other again.”
“Here’s hopin’, anyways, leetle ’un!” answered Nomad.
“If you should ever need a lot of husky warriors like us, Dell,” smiled the scout, “don’t forget to send us a call.”
“Send um call, Yellow Hair,” put in the Piute boy; “you bet Little Cayuse come, too.”
Dell turned away her face and could not answer. The bugle had already sounded “boots and saddles,” and a few moments later she rode off down the cañon with the men bound for Whipple.
“I’ve seen er hull lot er petticoat warriors, Buffler,” remarked Nomad, following the retreating dust with moody eyes, “but I never seen one ter match Dauntless Dell, o’ ther Double D.”
“Nor I,” returned the scout. “She’s Class A among Western girls.”
“Right you are,” said Doyle, who had drawn near. “Miss Dauntless has been the hit of the piece that was pulled off here. You’re not going after Geronimo, Cody, they tell me?”
“There are enough after him as it is, Doyle.”
“He’ll give ’em all the slip, mind what I’m telling you. After he raids around in Mexico until he gets tired, he’ll let the soldiers take him in and conduct him back to the reservation; then, when he gets good and ready, he’ll break out again. He has got to have a certain amount of excitement, every so often, in order to get along and feel right.”
“I’d like ter know what he put in thet pool,” said Nomad, firing up his pipe. “Ther more I think o’ thet loco bizness, ther stranger et gits.”
“I don’t suppose anybody will ever find out, Nomad,” said Doyle. “Geronimo knows a lot of things that he keeps to himself.”
“Thet loco stuff must be one o’ them thar things, then, leftenant. Ef ther gov’ment could find out what et is, an’ go round doctorin’ all ther springs in the hills arter a gang o’ ’Paches break loose, et wouldn’t be long afore them Injun fad fer jumpin’ ther reservation would die out.”
“That sounds well, Nomad,” laughed Doyle, “but I’m afraid the scheme wouldn’t work, even if we knew the secret of Geronimo’s dope.”
“Mebby et wouldn’t,” mused Nomad, “but I’d shore like ter try ther stuff on some ’un.”
THE END.
No. 78 of theNew Border Stories, entitled “Buffalo Bill’s Private War,” takes the reader through a wild series of adventure with the great scout, in which the hairbreadth escapes are many and interesting.
No. 78 of theNew Border Stories, entitled “Buffalo Bill’s Private War,” takes the reader through a wild series of adventure with the great scout, in which the hairbreadth escapes are many and interesting.