CHAPTER XIV.STRANGE HAPPENINGS.
Before they had gone far they were given evidence that the Redskin Rovers had awakened to the fact that they had been tricked; an awakening due doubtless to the superior intelligence of their white leader, who, as his talk with Buffalo Bill had showed, was not an ignorant man.
Now and again a distant yell was heard—a signal call; and signal fires flashed forth on some of the hills. It became evident, too, that the redskins suspected that the escaped prisoners would hurry toward Latimer’s, because these yells and signal fires advanced in that direction.
The utmost caution was required to keep now from running into some trap. Hence, progress, though steady, was slow, and but little talking was done. Buffalo Bill led the way, striding on before, and Nomad brought up the rear on Nebuchadnezzar.
Nomad took care to conceal any chance sight of the fiery lines on his body; and as for old Nebuchadnezzar, the silent manner in which he plodded on suggested that he understood the peril of his human companions quite as well as they did themselves.
In the border of the hills, shortly before daybreak, the little company of fugitives halted and went into camp. But they built no fires, and they maintained a good degree of quiet.
As they camped down, Buffalo Bill found opportunity to ask old Nomad what it was he had on several occasions tried to communicate to him.
Nomad cackled out his queer little laugh, and glanced at Latimer. “Buffler,” he said, “I been achin’ ter tell ye why I went ter thet house; but now I ain’t goin’ ter tell ye till we git ther ag’in. I’m goin’ ter su’prise ye with it.”
“You can’t say, Nomad, if you know anything about that young man and young woman I saw there?”
“Buffler, not a thing. I never knowed sich critters war thar.”
Buffalo Bill again asked John Latimer what he knew of them; and Latimer, as before, declared his complete ignorance, although there was something in his manner when he said it which seemed strange and unnatural.
However, ever since his capture, Latimer had acted more and more as if he were displeased with Buffalo Bill. He had been silent and reticent, and apparently filled with morbid gloom. And he no more talked of the Redskin Rovers and the outlaws, which had been his excuse for asking Buffalo Bill to come out to his home.
It will be recalled that he had written many complaints to the authorities about the raids made by outlaws and Indians on his place, and because of these complaints Buffalo Bill had been sent there. Now he had dropped that subject, and Buffalo Bill began to wonder if Latimer himself were not in some way mixed up with the very bands of whom he had solustily complained. It would not have been the first time in his experience when such a thing had been revealed.
In the camp in the border of the hills the little party remained until after daylight, and they did not set forth until from the highest peak the scout had taken a survey of the country and had determined that the pursuing Indians were not near.
With the coming of day, Pizen Kate became voluble once more. She developed a surprising tendency to ask sharp questions of John Latimer.
“I don’t think that you’re what you’re pertendin’ to be,” she told him. “I think that you’re jes’ a deceiver. All men aire deceivers, but they deceive in diff’rent ways. Nicholas deceived me by makin’ me think that he loved me so well he couldn’t never leave me, and then he up and run away fust chance he got. But you’re diff’rent from him. You’re a-deceivin’ as to who ye aire, and as to why you’re livin’ out in this country. Now, ain’t ye?”
“Woman, stop your chatter!” he cried.
“A woman’s tongue was made fer talkin’,” she snapped. “I don’t shet up until I want to. And I ain’t goin’ to want to until I know if you ain’t a deceiver.”
Nomad grinned while Pizen Kate was thus expressing herself; but it was observable, at the same time, that he paid close attention to Latimer’s comments, and seemed disappointed when nothing came of Pizen Kate’s tongue-wagging.
Buffalo Bill also listened closely; for he, too, hadthe feeling that John Latimer was not all he professed to be.
There was a good deal of timbered land along the base of the hills, extending well out upon the mesa where Latimer had his home. In the open, treeless mesa there was danger of being seen by the pursuing redskins, and for that reason Buffalo Bill called another halt.
It seemed advisable that a thorough look about the country should be taken, and for this purpose both Buffalo Bill and Nick Nomad separated from the others and set forth, going in different directions. Thus Pizen Kate and John Latimer were left behind.
Hardly were Nomad and Buffalo Bill out of sight when Latimer rose from the ground where he had been resting, and strode about, looking hither and thither in a restless manner. Pizen Kate had her keen and snappy eyes on him.
“I’ve allers heerd,” she declared, “that when men’s consciences is hurtin’ ’em bad they git fidgety, same’s you aire now. And I’ve allers heerd, likewise, that confession is good fer a hurtin’ conscience. So, if you’ve anything that’s settin’ too hard on yer mind, why don’t ye tell me about it, and mebbe I kin help ye some. I allers git the confidences of everybody in the community where I’ve lived these twenty years back, and I reckon that ought to prove that in comfortin’ I ain’t no slow coach.”
It was a queer speech, and it had no effect on John Latimer, except to irritate him.
“Woman, hold your tongue!” he commanded.
“Well, not atyourorderin’!” she snapped. “I’ve been watchin’ ye, and somethin’s troublin’ you, er I ain’t a jedge. Now, what is it?”
“I won’t listen to your chatter!” he asserted in wrath, and walked away.
Though she soon started to follow him, for the purpose of seeing what he did, or what befell him, he walked so rapidly, when once he had left her, that she lost sight of him.
“Well, don’t that git ye?” she mumbled, peering through the undergrowth. “I said, and I’ll say it ag’in, that somethin’s troublin’ that man a good deal more than his breakfast is.”
Buffalo Bill had found some Indian signs which did not please him, and he was hastening back to the camp, with the intention of suggesting a forward movement, when he came upon a sight that astonished him. He saw Latimer walking hurriedly through the timber growth, which here was low and scrubby—walking as if he had an important meeting in view and needed to hasten. Then he saw Latimer stop before an Indian, who rose out of the bushes.
Latimer seemed to hold a brief conversation with this Indian. His attitude was that of a man talking with the Indian in a friendly manner, rather than otherwise. But before the conversation had proceeded far other Indians jumped out of the undergrowth, and these made Latimer a prisoner.
What had before seemed so like treachery on Latimer’s part looked altogether different now; and, seeing that he needed aid, Buffalo Bill started hurriedlyto help him, gliding through the bushes with the silence and ease of a serpent.
Then another and most peculiar thing happened:
A young man leaped out of the undergrowth—a young man who swung a heavy rifle as a club. He attacked the Indians with an awful ferocity, smashing at them as if he cared not for his own life or the risks he ran.
While he thus attacked the redskins a young woman came running out into the little glade where these things were taking place. There she halted, pitching a little rifle up to her shoulder. She stood like a picture framed by the greenery, just long enough to enable her to draw the rifle sights down on the fighting men; and then the little rifle cracked.
One of the Indians, who had been making the stiffest fight against the young man, fell at the report of the rifle. The second Indian the young man knocked down. The third took to his heels, and was followed quickly by the one whom the youth had knocked over.
The young woman darted away, and came back in a little while, leading two horses.
Latimer lay on the ground, apparently hurt, with the young man bending over him. When the horses were brought up by the girl, Latimer was lifted by the youth to the back of one of them. Behind him the young woman mounted, the young man leaped to the back of the other horse, and then all rode away hurriedly, disappearing from view almost immediately.
All this Buffalo Bill saw, as he stood halting and hesitating.
It took place, too, in a time inconceivably short; so that if the scout had even tried to reach the scene of this swift action, he would not have arrived there before the chief actors had departed.
He stood in a sort of daze, however, not starting forward until after the horses and their riders had disappeared; for he had recognized in that young man and young woman the ones he had seen so mysteriously at Latimer’s house on the mesa.
“I don’t know how it chanced that Latimer was out here, but the rest of it is clear enough,” was his thought, as he walked hastily on toward the point where this lively fight and transformation had taken place. “Those people are Latimer’s friends, in spite of his statements that he did not know of their existence. Chancing to be here, they saw his strait and rushed to his aid. That young man is a fighter of the sort I like to see, and that girl is certainly a heroine, as well as a cool rifle shot. I wonder who they are? And I wonder why Latimer should have thought it needful to deny all knowledge of them? Yes, and why did they act so mysteriously at the house?”
These questions could not be answered by an inspection of the Indian the girl had brought down; but the scout, nevertheless, went up to the fallen redskin who was dead.
An inspection of his clothing, ornaments, and weapons convinced Buffalo Bill that he belonged to the Redskin Rovers, which was proof enough that theRovers were following the fugitives still, and were near.
The dead Indian had a good revolver, and as the scout needed one, he appropriated it, together with the cartridges.
The trail left by the two horses Buffalo Bill followed for some distance, until convinced that it was headed in the direction of the house on the mesa.