CHAPTER XL.CODY AND NOMAD.
Buffalo Bill had seen the movements of the outlaws under Black John, and had discovered the ambush laid for him on the hillside. He had heard the outcry made when Nomad escaped, and then he had caught a glimpse of the old trapper getting away, with his shaggy-headed horse.
The great scout was too wise to show himself; he was but one man, and the road agents numbered nearly a score. He was already satisfied that they were the mustangers, or that some of them were, and that the mustang catching was but a side issue, carried on chiefly for the purpose of blinding people to their real work.
The fact that old Nomad seemed to be dragged by his horse, instead of riding on the back of the animal, suggested trouble for the old man, though the scout did not understand the nature of it.
Buffalo Bill now concealed his horse in a hollow that was filled with bushes, and then on foot made his way in the direction of Nomad’s flight. He was worried about the safety of the girl, whom he had left with Nomad. More than ever he wished she would be tractable, and that she had started for Glendive with Pawnee Bill.
In going forward now, Buffalo Bill used the utmost carefulness.
The thick growth of bushes that covered the land except in spots, while offering him protection, screened as well much of the movements of the road agents, so that he was in constant danger of blundering into them at the most unexpected point.
His wariness, his keen eyesight, and trained hearing stood him in good stead.
He found the hoofprints of Nebuchadnezzar, and began to follow them. That the tracks were made by Nomad’s horse he knew from the fact that recently Nebuchadnezzar had broken a triangular piece out of his right fore hoof. The impression in the soil was unmistakable, to a man trained as the scout was in the fine art of trailing.
Half an hour or more afterward the scout saw indications that the old horse had entered a small grove, near a little stream. He could not see the horse in there, and he began to fear that here was an ambush. He knew Nebby might have run into a bunch of road agents in that grove and been captured, with his owner, and the road agents might be lying in wait for any friend of Nomad who followed his trail.
Standing off at a distance, concealed by trees and rocks, Buffalo Bill uttered the “cuckoo” cry of the little prairie-dog owl. It was a signal well understood by Nomad, when made in a peculiar way; and when from the grove there came an answering cry, the scout knew that in there no ambush existed.
“Hello!” he called, as he now boldly advanced.
“Thet you, Buffler?” came in a strained voice.
Nomad did not appear, and the thing seemed suspicious,so the scout went on, with revolver held ready for use.
When he had penetrated the grove, he found a strange state of affairs. Nomad lay on the ground, gasping, and almost breathless, his hands bound together at the wrist. The ground seemed torn up by his own efforts, for no enemy was to be seen. Close by stood old Nebuchadnezzar, looking at Nomad, and then turning his sad eyes on Buffalo Bill, as if to inquire the meaning of something he had not brain enough to fathom.
Buffalo Bill hurried forward and cut the cords from Nomad’s wrists. Nomad rolled over to a sitting position.
“Waugh!” he grunted, puffing his cheeks and blowing dirt out of his mouth. “Buffler, talk er ground hogs! I been ground-hoggin’ in the wust way ever. Fer an hour, seems ter me, I been kickin’ round hyar wuss’n any cussed grasshopper. Whar’d ye come frum? And shake! I never war so glad ter see anybody in all my bornd days!”
He extended his hand. The lines of the cords, where they had cut into his wrists, showed red, and deeply indented.
“Who tied you?” asked the scout, mystified, and glancing all around him. “I don’t see any trail here but yours.”
“Waugh! Let me git my wind, Buffler, and I’ll norate a tale fer ye that’ll make yer eyes bug out. I rid hyar bound thet way, and I didn’t ride in the saddle, nuther; couldn’t git up inter ther saddle.”
Then he told, in his own peculiar phraseology, of how he had been surprised and captured by the road agents, and of the manner of his singular escape, aided by Nebuchadnezzar.
“Thar never war yit another sech hoss, Buffler, on the top o’ ther airth!” he declared, with characteristic enthusiasm. “Whoa, Nebby, consarn ye; don’t git bashful and restless jes’ ’cause I’m praisin’ ye! Stan’ still, thar!” He looked lovingly at the homely old beast. “Nebby seen jes’ ther fix I war in, and he felt jes’ as bad as I did, and war jes’ as ’shamed o’ ther way we had been caught nappin’. And so he war ready fer somethin’ desprit, and he done it. I jes’ hooked my two tied hands over the horn o’ ther saddle and Nebby carried me off, same’s as if I war a bag o’ meal hooked onter him. It war ther greatest thing I ever knowed on, Buffler, an’ no mistake. But after Nebby’d done his part, I still seemed ter be not much better off. I got my hands from over the saddle horn, but I couldn’t ontie ’em. I tried to gnaw ther cords loose, but my ole teeth has seen their best days, and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t break ther cords, and thar I war; fer, smart as Nebby is, I couldn’t nowise git him ter do anything. I tried ter git him ter bite at ther cords, but he wouldn’t, and jes’ stood lookin’ at me, wonderin’ what kind of a crazy fit I war havin’; fer I war shore pawin’ up ther ground suthin’ dreadful, in tryin’ ter git myself free.”
The old trapper told what he knew of the girl who had been left behind in the power of the road agents, and of the road agents themselves; though this lastwas little enough, and largely guesswork, as he had not seen their faces.
The scout saw that some strenuous and perilous work was cut out for him. At all hazards, Lena must be rescued, and her lover as well.
“We’ll have to lie low a while,” he said to Nomad. “We’ll strike their trail after they’ve gone on, and then we’ll do what we can.”
Old Nomad made a grimace.
“Buffler, I feels like lyin’ low fer a week; fer I’m thet stiff and sore thet every inch o’ me feels as ef it had been beat with an ox whip. I reckon I’ve got you to thank fer my life, too; fer, try as I would, I couldn’t git rid of them cords on my wrists. And, gee, but them wrists aire hurtin’ yit!”
They were red and swollen, and very painful.
From the top of the nearest hill, to which he climbed with great carefulness, Buffalo Bill viewed, as well as he could, the surrounding country. He saw the road agents under Black John moving off in the direction of the stage trail. It surprised him, and for a time puzzled him; then he hit on what seemed to him the true solution.
“They’ve forced Lena Forest to tell them where the emeralds are buried, and they’re going to get them. Too bad! But I don’t see how it’s to be prevented now. Of course, no one can blame her for telling, when, no doubt, she was threatened, and frightened.”
He surveyed the returning cavalcade with his field glasses; and saw the two prisoners in the midst of the outlaws.
As he lay thus on the top of the hill, he saw on another hill, some distance away, a horseman appear. He swung the glasses around and pointed them at this horseman, while a cry of surprise broke from his lips.
“Pawnee Bill!”
And Pawnee Bill was supposed to be at that moment speeding on his way to Glendive!
Deeming it safe to do so, Buffalo Bill stood up and waved his hat about his head. But the signal was not observed by Pawnee Bill, who was looking at Black John’s men.
Buffalo Bill saw the horseman begin to descend from the hill, with the apparent intention of following the road agents.
Therefore, he quickly climbed down himself, and returned in haste to Nomad with his astonishing news.
The scout and Nomad rode out of the grove, and, following swiftly in the course taken by Pawnee Bill, soon overtook him. He was not at all surprised to see them.
“I’ve been looking for you,” he said. “From the top of that high hill away over there I saw, with my glasses, that something had gone wrong; and so I back-tracked, and here I am. What’s the news?”
They had enough to tell him, of a surprising character.
“I guess it was Nomad’s fight and capture that I saw,” he said. “As you are both all right, perhaps I’d better go on again. I came back because I thought likely I was needed.”
As, in pursuing the road agents now, toward thestage trail, the scouts were really going somewhat in the direction of Glendive, Pawnee Bill kept with them.
Before the stage trail was reached they saw the bandits returning, still with their prisoners.
Night was at hand.
Black John had got rid of most of his men, having only six or eight with him now, among them Toby Sam. Little by little he was reducing his force, sending men here and there on various pretexts. In this manner, he thought to get rid of them all, by and by, and have the prisoners himself; when he meant to put the young man out of the way, and fly with the young woman and the emeralds.
The fact that Black John’s force had been reduced caused a change of plan on the part of the scouts.
It was decided that it was not necessary to send Pawnee Bill on to Glendive for assistance, but that the wisest course now was for the three pards to remain together, and, in the darkness, try to get at the prisoners and release them. Therefore, when they fell in behind Black John’s party, and began to follow this trail, they kept a sharp outlook ahead, expecting that soon he would go into camp for the night, when they would endeavor to put their plan of rescue into execution.
But Black John did not go into camp. He pushed straight on in the gathering darkness. Before coming to the region where he might expect to encounter Buffalo Bill, he shifted his course to miss him and then hurried on again.
Black John’s carelessness of pursuit enabled thescouts to keep pretty close to him, after darkness fell, and still not reveal themselves.
Hour after hour Black John and his men held on their way.
After a while he became suspicious, apparently, having heard the pursuers, and dropped a scout back as a rear guard; thus forcing Buffalo Bill and his companions to halt.
When this rear guard went on again, he rode rapidly for some rendezvous, failing to rejoin Black John; and soon the scouts were bewildered in the darkness, and almost lost the trail.
For a time after that they sat still on their horses, trying to hear some sound indicating the direction of Black John’s retreat. Unable to do this, they were forced to begin a search for hoofprints; but they lost time in picking up the trail, and when it was found they could not follow it rapidly. They held to it, however, with much pertinacity, though falling rapidly behind the road agents.
When morning came, after an all-night ride, that, in their experience, had few equals in weariness, they were still on the trail, but miles behind. They ignored their weariness, when they saw the trail stretching straight on before them, and pressed their horses into a swift gallop, after a brief stop for water and grazing, and for food for themselves.
“Buffler,” said Nomad, as they started on, “we hangs to this hyar trail till ther last hoss is dead!”