CHAPTER XXXIII.THE EAVESDROPPER.
As Buffalo Bill and Lena Forest approached her uncle’s home, a man who had been in the cabin slipped out by the back door.
His horse was hidden in the grove two hundred yards off, and at first he thought of reaching it and riding hurriedly away. But he hesitated; and then, seeing an opening, he crawled under the floor.
“I’ll just hear what that scout and the girl aire talkin’ about,” he said. “And I’d like to know about them emeralds, if he or she has got ’em. He was to have given ’em to her. But I’m gamblin’ he ain’t any honester than other folks, and that he ain’t said a word to her about ’em. I’ve got to git my fist on ’em, er know why. Great howlin’ tomcats! Them gems aire worth a fortune that would make these hyer little common fortunes you hear about look sick. I’m bettin’ Buffalo Bill never hints a word to her about ’em. He’d be a fool to, and he ain’t a fool!”
He was hiding under the floor when Buffalo Bill and the girl came to the cabin and entered it. To his surprise, they were speaking of the emeralds which he had been sure the scout would never mention to her.
“Oh, she’s got ’em now, has she?” he thought, as he heard the talk. He pressed an ear to the boards above his head. “Oh, ho! He thinks there’s danger that some one will git onto the fact that she’s got ’em, andthat she’s in danger with ’em in this section of the country. I reckon he don’t dream that I’m already onto the fact that there aire such gems; that I came on him when he was givin’ his promise to old Gordon there in the mountains, and that I follered him, hopin’ to git a chance to pinch ’em; and that I fired the pines, believin’ that I could roast him, and afterward git them emeralds from his dead body. Well, I ain’t got ’em yit, but I’ll have ’em!”
Though he so desired those emeralds, all his efforts to get them had been sneaking and cowardly in the extreme.
“I’ll have Bruce go with me, and I’ll let him carry them,” he heard Lena say. “I’m going East, Mr. Cody, for a little visit, and perhaps Bruce can go part way with me, on the stage.”
“Bruce! Bruce!” the rascal muttered. “Who’s Bruce? So he’s to carry ’em, is he? He’s sweet on the girl. I’ve heard that she has a ‘steady,’ and that they’re going to marry. She’ll have him go with her, and she’ll have him carry the emeralds, for no one will ever think of him carryin’ ’em. That’s the game, is it? Oh, no; nobody will ever think of that!”
The listening rascal slapped his leg so hard in his jubilant mood that he became startled; the sound of talking ceased. He heard the scout walk to the door, and then walk back.
“That was my horse, I guess, made that noise,” he heard the scout say.
The man crouched into as small a space as he could,and lay shivering, fearing now to breathe. Soon he heard the talking going on again.
“Oh! Aha!” he muttered, listening. “She’s goin’ to take the next stage, which comes through here day after to-morrow, and go on that, and her young man is to go with her. I reckon that when they git East they’ll marry. He’ll be a fool not to marry her, if they git through with the emeralds. But I reckon them gems aire due in this direction; and, somehow, I think I’ll git ’em!”
When he had heard apparently all that was to be said concerning the emeralds and the manner of their transmission to the East, he crawled from under the house.
He was standing under a tree, beyond the corner of the house, when he was surprised there by Buffalo Bill, who came on him suddenly, the scout having issued from the front door.
“Hello!” said the scout gruffly. “What are you doing here?”
Instead of answering, the man turned about and ran.
Buffalo Bill drew a revolver; then lowered it. He did not want to shoot the fellow, nor did he want to alarm the girl.
“The rascal was slipping up to the house for some purpose,” he said, “but he didn’t reach it. I came out and caught him here under the tree. Some scoundrelly scamp who thought to do a little stealing! If I tell Miss Forest it will only frighten her. And her nervesare gone all to pieces now. What’s the use of worrying her further?”
Buffalo Bill watched the man as he disappeared within the grove, and saw him come out with his horse and ride off.
“The villain tried to keep his face turned away so that I wouldn’t know him next time I saw him, but I think I’d recognize him, just the same!”
He returned to the house, and discovered Lena contemplating the emeralds, which she had poured out on the table.
“Good thing he didn’t get to see them,” was the scout’s thought, when he observed that.
“It seems almost as if my unclemustcome again, and that I ought to wait here for him,” she said, looking up. “It’s strange how I can’t make myself realize that he is dead.”
She rested her cheek on her hand and looked at the scout. She was a handsome girl, clad simply, but in good taste, and he could note her beauty. Her brown eyes were dark and dreamy, and the flush now in her cheeks, though it was a bit hectic, gave them the color that they needed. The hand on which she rested her cheek was small and shapely, though it was now rope-burned and red from the effects of her climb that morning to save the life of the scout.
“It’s hard to realize a thing which one doesn’t see,” Buffalo Bill assented.
“Of course, I can’t stay here,” she said; “and, really, I must go at once; for hereafter this house will seem haunted to me. I’ll go straight East, and have Brucego with me. I may never come back again. And yet I should like to look just once on my father’s grave.”
“It’s a lonely place,” he said. “We heaped a cairn of stones over it, and set up a little wooden headboard, bearing his name and the date of his death.”
“I shall put a costly monument there some time,” she announced.
“He was worthy of it; for he was a good man, and I’m sure his last thoughts were of you.”
The brown eyes dimmed again with tears.
She placed the emeralds in the buckskin bag, stowed it in the bosom of her dress, and walked to the door. Standing there, she glanced longingly up the trail and out across the river, to the side of the cañon she had scaled, and then let her eyes wander on to the smoking pines that stood in blackened ranks still higher.
“I’m expecting every minute that Bruce will come,” she said. “Something is keeping him.” She sat down again by the table. “Let me get you some breakfast,” she urged; “and pardon me for not thinking of it before.”
“I’ve been too busy to think of anything to eat, my dear girl. Does Bruce know you are here?”
“Yes; I left word for him that I was going to see my uncle, and told him how to get here. But I’m neglecting you! I have been too much excited. I’ll get you something. And that will help to pass the time away, too.”
She was soon busy in the little kitchen.
Buffalo Bill was thinking of the man he had seenunder the tree. “I wonder if he could have been nearer the house than that?” he began now to question, as he left the house again and walked out to the tree.
He began to scan the ground between the house and the tree. The color rose in his face as he did so, for he saw that the man had been at the door and close by the windows; also he saw the hole under the house, which looked as if something had lately passed through it.
“Have you a dog?” he asked, returning to the house.
“No,” she said. “Uncle never kept a dog, though often I’ve though he ought to have one, and a good, savage one, too, living out here alone so much. But no one ever really troubled him. Several months ago a drunken man came along the trail, and at another time an Indian tried to get into the house to steal something; but that’s all.”
“That was enough!”
She was bustling about the kitchen, and soon she had the breakfast ready, and they sat down to it.
“You’re expecting some one, too?” she said. “Pawnee Bill, and who was the other?”
“Nick Nomad.”
“Oh, yes; such an odd name I couldn’t remember it. And you say he is an odd character?”
“But with a heart of gold. Old Nick Nomad is as true and good a friend as I ever could wish to have.”
“And all three of you are here looking for Blackfeet Indians and road agents?”
“Yes.”
“I should think that would be dangerous?”
“It has its drawbacks—a hunter of road agents may get a bullet from one of them at any time.”
He said it lightly, yet he meant it; the calling was peculiarly dangerous. He preferred other work, and even scouting for Indians in a hostile Indian country he considered far less perilous.
When the breakfast was ended, she went to the door again and looked up and down the trail.
“Your friends are coming!” she announced.
Buffalo Bill stepped quickly to the door.
Pawnee Bill and Nick Nomad were approaching on horseback, from the direction of Glendive, a town situated beyond Crystal Spring.