CHAPTER XXXVIII.DENTON AND DELAND.
There was one man in Scarlet Gulch who, if he had had any doubt of the masquerading of Buffalo Bill’s double, had that doubt completely blown to the wind by what he witnessed in the street before the Flash Light Saloon. That man was young Ben Denton, the lover of Ellen West.
He was far from dead; though wounded in the shoulder, and by the shock of the bullet and his heavy fall rendered temporarily unconscious.
On recovering consciousness, he discovered quickly that Ellen West had been induced to leave the town with the man who had shot him, and he knew she was unaware of that shooting, and had gone with the man in full faith of his sincerity and good intentions.
Having crawled to his feet, and then received aid from friendly hands, who bandaged his shoulder and gave him stimulants, the young fellow’s courage gave him strength to get down into the street before the Flash Light Saloon, where, he heard, Buffalo Bill had been captured and was about to be hanged. He heard the scout’s explanation and declarations of what had taken place, and he was sensible enough to see that this man was really the great scout, of whom he had so often heard, but up to that moment had not beheld. He saw how he and the girl, and all their friends, had been fooled by the man who had been so boldly masquerading as Buffalo Bill.
Denton was in that wild throng when Wild Bill made his appearance, and he was still there when Silas Deland hurled the smoke-and-fire bomb into the crowd, with such spectacular effect.
He saw the escape from the mob of the real Buffalo Bill, on the back of Wild Bill’s horse, and accompanied by that redoubtable fighter. Still lingering and weak, he heard the angry shouting and denunciations, and the wordy commands of Slocum and Rainey, and saw the hasty attempt being made to follow the fleeing men.
Then he still further gathered together his strength and his courage, and, getting a horse from a stable near, he mounted, white-faced and panting, but courageous and undaunted, and rode out of the town himself, intending to be close to the mob of pursuers.
The drunken mob scattered as they left the town behind, some falling out and returning almost at once, others continuing on. But though Slocum and Rainey led, the pursuit was but a disorganized and disorderly thing, and showed little capability.
“They’ll never do anything,” said Denton.
He turned from the racing and drunken pursuers, and rode away alone, shaping his course in the direction he believed the false Buffalo Bill had taken.
He had gone but a little way in this manner when he heard galloping hoofs. Some one else was heading in the same course.
A mounted form loomed up out of the darkness, and this mounted form drew rein.
“What, ho!”
“Who’s there?” said Denton, clutching the revolver he had armed himself with before starting.
“Are you Ben Denton?”
Ben did not recognize the voice, and to be thus addressed rather astonished him.
“Yes, that is my name,” he answered.
The horseman rode near; then he saw before him a man he had once noticed in the Flash Light Saloon, a man whose face and nose were very red as if from much drinking.
“Ho, ho!” cackled this man. “This is hard riding! I’ve been follerin’ ye fer nigh about an hour, seems to me.”
“What for?” Denton asked suspiciously, and sharply.
“Because of what I know about ye, and what I heard about ye. You’re interested in the rescue of the young lady that has been run away with by an imp o’ Satan who has been goin’ round playin’ a ruffianly Buffalo Bill?”
“Yes.” Denton was puzzled. How did this man know so much?
“Well, I’m Sile Deland. I’ve been puttin’ up at the boardin’ house over the Flash Light. I was gittin’ a horse fer myself when I seen you git that’n and cut out. And I follered ye.”
“What for?” Denton wondered if this man was to be trusted. He knew nothing about him.
“Because I’m a human bein’, and so am naturally int’rested in the capture of the same man that you aire; and I didn’t know but that we could hunt together,like a pair o’ wolves, say; and maybe I could help you, and you could help me.”
“You know something about that man?” Denton asked.
“I don’t, but I know he’s a rascal. My name’s Silas Deland.”
“But I don’t know you,” the young man protested. “What do you want to capture that man for?”
“Same as you do—to see that he gits what’s properly deservin’. Shall we two jog along together, er do we sep’rate right here? Maybe I could help ye. I was told you’d been shot; and when I seen ye go, I recognized the fact that you wasn’t fit, and was takin’ some mighty big resks.”
Denton, who had been holding on by sheer strength, felt a sudden weakness, which he conquered.
“I think I’d prefer to go on alone, unless you can tell me just where I can find that man, and who he is.”
“If I knew where to find him, I’d be happier than a fool; but I don’t know. As to who he is, I don’t mind in tellin’ you that among them that knows him best he’s called Panther Pete. So I’ve been told.”
“Panther Pete!”
“Ho, ho! I see you’ve heerd that name?”
“The name of the leader of the Black Bandits!”
“Jest the same feller. He cut up sich blood-and-thunder shines over in the Bittersweet country that he had to light out of there. Buffalo Bill was after him hard at the time. He disappeared, dropped out of sight, and then reappeared here, callin’ himself Buffalo Bill, and doin’ ther things you’ve heard hereabout.Well, that’s him, Panther Pete—the blackest, meanest, most contemptible villain that walks under the sky. He was down in Arizony onct, when I was there, and so I know that much about him.”
“You’re after him? Who are you?”
“Me?” he cackled again. “Call me Sile Deland, and you’ll hit it. I’m after him only because I think he ought to be punished, and I like the excitement of a man hunt. Shall we strike hands together as pards, and make this hunt in pair?”
The young man hesitated. “I think I’ll go alone,” he said finally. “Thanks for your kind offer; and because I don’t accept, don’t think I don’t appreciate it. But—I don’t know you; and I’ve found out that when out here you don’t know a man it’s safe to let him alone.”
“You’re cautious, and caution usually wins, young man. I don’t blame ye. So long!”
When young Denton went on again, Deland held in his horse until the young man had passed on. Then he gave his horse its head and permitted it to follow in the same general direction, drawing rein now and then to listen to the clattering feet of Denton’s pony.
Suddenly there was confusion in those clattering hoofs.
“Ah! I expected it.”
Silas Deland rode forward finally, and soon he came on a sight that startled him. Young Denton, overcome by weakness and loss of blood, had tumbled blindly from his saddle. One foot clung to the stirrup, and his horse was dragging him.
Silas Deland yelled to the horse, rode up to it, leaped to the ground, and stopped it; and then, disengaging the young man’s foot, he laid the unconscious youth down on the grass, and began to work to restore him to consciousness.
“It’s what I looked for, young man! Your courage is bigger than any other part of you—bigger even than your common sense, or you’d never tried this thing in the condition you’re in. It’s a good thing for you that I tried to keep close to you. You, and that young lady, too, seem to be needin’ help about this time.”
He drew a metal whisky flask from his pocket and poured some of the whisky down Denton’s throat.
“Oh, ho! You ain’t dead, ’tany rate! You’re comin’ round. Nothing like this here wine of life to put a man’s breathin’ apparatus to work when it’s gone on a sudden strike. Fer myself, though, I never teches it, unless I’m snake bit, er dyin’; and I only prescribes it in oncommon needy cases, like this here. You’re comin’ round! Well, now, mebbe, you’ll have more respect for yer humble servant. And we’ll go huntin’ that girl together, so we will.”
He gave Denton some more of the powerful stimulant, and was pleased by his signs of returning animation.
When Denton opened his eyes to consciousness again, the first thing he was aware of was that the queer stranger was sitting before him in the darkness, chuckling like some strange animal, and offering him a drink of whisky out of a metal bottle.