CHAPTER XXXV.MOBBED AND THREATENED.
Panther Pete and his escort, with the girl, were seen as they galloped out of the town.
A hue and cry was raised immediately, and the story was circulated that Buffalo Bill and some of his Border Ruffians had invaded the town and had kidnaped the beautiful Ellen West.
The young man who had fallen from the steps under Panther Pete’s pistol fire, and had been left there by Panther Pete as dead, revived sufficiently to crawl to the next house, and to raise the alarm.
Mrs. Dean, on being interviewed, told her story; but it did not change the general belief that the girl had been abducted; it being argued that “Buffalo Bill” had used persuasions that were false to get her out of the town, so that in truth it was an abduction.
Mrs. Dean had heard Panther Pete’s declarations that young Denton had already departed for West’s mining claim in the Blue Hills; and, of course, this was seen at once to have been a lie.
Hence, it was believed that the statement that the girl’s father had asked her to go out there was also a lie.
A tremendous excitement was created.
The half-drunken men at the Flash Light heard the news of the abduction, and of the shooting of Denton. They roared their rage, and the vigilantes rushedabout as if they hoped to capture the man they had already determined to hang.
While this tremendous excitement was at white heat, Buffalo Bill rode leisurely into the town.
Riding up to the hitching rail in front of the Flash Light Saloon, where, as he saw, something exciting was occurring, he calmly tied his horse, and was on the point of entering the place when he was seen.
A wild roar of surprise and rage rose. Then a swarm of men stormed out of the saloon and quickly surrounded him.
He could not at first understand the nature of their clamor, but he saw them fingering their weapons, and saw that their tones and manner were threatening in the extreme.
“What’s the trouble, friends?” he asked.
“It’s you!” was bellowed at him.
“Is that so? Let us go into the Flash Light, where you may all drink at my expense, and there we will talk it over.”
“Here come the vigilantes, with Slocum and Rainey!” some one howled.
Rainey and Slocum had quickly gathered their following, and were now descending on the scout. Slocum was in the lead, spectacularly waving his hand, and Rainey carried a revolver.
“Surrender!” Slocum shouted, almost hysterically.
Buffalo Bill looked amazed. “Surrender! Why should I surrender?”
A roar of wrath went up.
Slocum planted himself in front of the scout, in an oratorical attitude. “Because, sir,” he shouted, “you are a would-be murderer. Not a half an hour ago, sir, you shot down in cold blood one of our esteemed feller citerzens, Ben Denton. That he’s livin’ is not your fault. He got a bullet in his left shoulder, sir, and it came near wingin’ him on the way to that land where murderers like you, sir, can never hope to go. That’s the first indictment we bring against you before the court of Judge Lynch, sir.
“I am,” he waved his hand, “the prosecuting attorney, charged by the citerzens of this town with assistin’ the judge in the performance of his duty, and in the bringin’ to jestice of them that has willfully and wickedly violated the law.
“My second charge against you, sir, is that you are the leader of that rascally and villainous organization of thieves and cutthroats, known hereabouts as Buffalo Bill’s Border Ruffians; and that as such head of this villainous organization aforesaid you have been robbin’ stagecoaches and wanderin’ wayfarers on our highways, and filchin’ the hard earnings of the miners of this great and growing community, sir.
“In other words, you are Buffalo Bill—the man who came to this peaceable section posing as an honest and honorable man, and then has secretly done deeds that the light of day shudders, sir, to look at.
“In chargin’ you, sir, with these crimes, I now mention the runnin’ away a while ago with Miss Ellen West. And fur these things I ask that the vigilantes, organized for this purpose, take you, and tie a roperound your wu’thless neck, and swing yer wu’thless carkiss to that tree limb over there; and may God have mercy on your soul!”
The scout had listened at first in amusement and amazement. He now saw that there was black meaning back of all this fustian; that in truth this bombastic orator represented a committee of vigilantes determined to take his life. He saw, too, how easy it was for these men to mistake him for the man who had been masquerading in his place.
“See here,” said Buffalo Bill, “you are making the greatest mistake of your life. I have heard of the rascal for whom you take me, and I agree that if what has been reported of him is true he deserves hanging; but I am not that man. I am William F. Cody, known as Buffalo Bill. There is a man, I am told, in this section, who has been posing as Buffalo Bill.”
They interrupted him with howls of anger and laughter.
He saw now that he would have to fight his way through that crowd if he hoped to get away, and he swung with a quick movement into his saddle. But as he did so, he heard an ominous clicking of revolvers and saw that more than a dozen were trained on him.
To attempt to break through the crowd, it seemed, would be simply suicide. He might kill one, or several, of these men, but they could get him in spite of that; and then they certainly would make short work with him at the end of a rope.
They pushed toward him angrily, and three or four jumped to get hold of his bridle reins.
“Will you listen to reason?” he said. “I came here because I had heard of the things done by that masquerader who was sullying my good name.”
“Oh, we don’t take no bluff like that!” was yelled at him.
“We know that you’re Buffler Bill, all right,” another shouted. “And it’s Buffler Bill we’re wantin’.”
Some of them took hold of his legs as if to drag him out of his saddle.
“You won’t believe that you are making a mistake?”
“Hang him!” roared the mob.
Some one flourished a rope suggestively, while the crowd surged round, roaring and shouting.
Buffalo Bill now drew a revolver. He did not intend to be hanged by this mob. If his life was to be lost he would lose it fighting, not at the end of a rope.
Suddenly he drove his spurs desperately into the flanks of his horse, having before that, by a slash of his knife, released it from the hitching rack. It made one jump, then a revolver cracked, and the horse fell sprawling, a bullet in its brain.
The scout would have been hurled violently to the ground if he had not disengaged his feet from the stirrups and landed in an upright position.
As he struck the ground he held a revolver in each hand, and he was ready to use them.
He felt that his last hour had probably come, but he meant to meet it like a hero; these men would not have it to say afterward that he had gone to the ropelike a cringing coward. And if he had to die, he would take dear toll to pay to the grim ferryman.
But before he could use his revolvers there was a shout in the street, a loud clatter of galloping hoofs, and a man came dashing up into the very fringe of the howling mob.