CHAPTER XXVIII.A HAPPY REUNION.
The fight between the three outlaws and those who had just come into the gully was brief but decisive. The newcomers were piloted by Gentleman Jim, and consisted of the gambler, De Bray, Nomad, and Wild Bill.
This party had kept their uninterrupted way along the right-hand fork of the valley. Coomby had seen them, and had hastened toward the gully to give the alarm. Before he had rounded the base of the bluff he encountered Hank Tenny. Tenny had come, on orders from Buffalo Bill, looking for the rest of the scout’s pards. Having a prisoner along, Tenny was anxious to avoid trouble; but when he saw one lone outlaw coming in his direction through the moon and starlight, he dismounted, bided his time, and was having it nip and tuck with the outlaw when Gentleman Jim and the others reached the scene.
The outlaw was captured, and Tenny had time to explain where and why the scout and Dell had left for Chavorta Gorge and Pima before the attack on Cayuse carried the pards into the gully.
So, while the fight in the gully was going on, Tenny remained at the foot of the bluff, with two prisoners to watch, instead of one.
“Me follow stage-robbers,” Little Cayuse explained, in answer to Wild Bill’s demand for information.
“Cayuse, hey?” cried Nomad, coming to the spotwhere the boy and Wild Bill were standing. “Ye’re a reg’lar brick, son!” he went on, dropping an approving hand on the Piute’s shoulder. “Ye kin tell us how ye come ter be hyar later, but jest now we’re anxious ter find the white woman thet was taken from ther stage. Hev ye seen her, Cayuse?”
“White squaw all same dead,” said Cayuse.
A husky groan came from the dark, and Gentleman Jim staggered through the bushes and caught the boy’s arm in a convulsive grip.
“Where, where?” he asked.
“Under stone,” said Cayuse. “You go there you find um.”
“De Bray! Wild Bill!” groaned Gentleman Jim, sinking down on the ground and covering his face with his hands. “You go—I—I can’t! To think,” muttered the stricken gambler, “that I should be too late, after all! Too late, too late! Where’s Lawless?” he cried, looking up as the word, pulsing with murderous hate, came through his lips. “Where is the scoundrel who——”
“Thar, thar, Jim,” interposed Nomad soothingly, “don’t be in sich er takin’ till we make sure. Et’s darker’n a stack o’ black cats in this gully, an’ mebbyso Cayuse has made er mistake.”
“He hasn’t made a mistake,” returned the gambler. “I have felt in my bones, for the past week, that something was on the cards to make or mar me. This is it! Allie, my wife, was to come to me, and—and we were not destined to meet.”
Forgetting about Lawless, in his great sorrow, Gentleman Jim once more flung his hands over his face and crouched on the ground.
“You watch him, De Bray,” whispered Wild Bill to the Denver man. “Nomad and I will take a look into this cave under the rock.”
All three outlaws were badly wounded and beyond stirring up any more trouble. Little Cayuse made it his business to watch them, while De Bray kept a solicitous eye on Gentleman Jim.
Under the ledge, Wild Bill struck a match and peered about him. His eyes, almost immediately, fell on the form of Mrs. Brisco. She was bound hand and foot, and a handkerchief was tied over her lips; but her eyes were wide open and staring appealingly up into Wild Bill’s face.
“Nomad—here!” called Hickok.
The trapper hurried to the side of his pard.
“Waugh!” muttered Nomad, mystified. “Thet’s erbout ther wust mistake I ever knowed Cayuse ter make. Mrs. Brisco is alive! However did Cayuse git ther notion she wasn’t?”
Kneeling down, the old trapper, with quick but gentle hands, removed the cords from Mrs. Brisco’s wrists and ankles.
“My husband!” whispered the woman, tearing the handkerchief from her face. “I heard his voice a moment ago. Where is he?”
“He thinks ye’re dead, mum,” said Nomad softly. “Go out ter him. Et’ll be the happiest surprise o’ his life ter see ye well and hearty. Et ain’t often things turns out like this in rale life, Hickok,” the trapper added, watching Mrs. Brisco hurry out into the gully and approach her husband.
“Only in books, old pard,” returned Wild Bill, “doyou run across such a happenchance in the workings of fate. But I’m mighty glad this thing has happened to Gentleman Jim.”
“Same here,” said Nomad.
The two watched while the woman fluttered to the side of her grieving husband.
“Jim!” they heard her call brokenly.
The gambler leaped erect, stared for a second like one in a trance, and then opened his arms.
“Allie! Allie! Thank heaven for this!”
Wild Bill and Nomad turned away.
“Blame’ funny,” growled the old trapper, “how the smoke from them pesky sulfur matches blurrs a feller’s eyes.”
“That’s right,” said Wild Bill, drawing the back of his hand across his face, “although I never noticed it before.”
“Whatever do ye reckon give Cayuse ther idee thet Mrs. Brisco was dead?”
“I pass. The idea, however the boy got it, gave a powerful wrench to Gentleman Jim’s nerves, and——”
Mechanically, Wild Bill had struck another match and moved off toward the back of the cavernlike room under the ledge. He halted suddenly, staring at a form on the ground in front of him.
“Thunder!” he exclaimed. “Why, here’s Lawless, now.”
“Shore et is!” added Nomad, dropping down. “Lawless ain’t wearin’ ther same clothes he useter, but et’s him, an’, somehow, he’s saved ther hangman a job. He’s cashed in, Hickok.”
“What killed him?”
“A bullet. Thar’s er wound in his side.”
“Nick,” said Wild Bill, with a sudden thought, “do you remember the shot Henry Blake fired at Lawless?”
“Shore I remember et.”
“Well, that is what did the work for him.”
“I ain’t thinkin’ thet way, Wild Bill. Thet shot o’ Blake’s was fired a week ago, an’ et wasn’t no later’n this arternoon thet Lawless took his men agin’ ther stage a couple o’ times.”
“That’s a fact!” murmured Wild Bill, puzzled. “And we’re overlooking what Hank Tenny said about Buffalo Bill and Dell going to Chavorta Gorge after Lawless. How can——”
“No use of me watching Gentleman Jim any more,” said De Bray, coming in under the ledge just then. “Seen anything of my twenty thousand, any of you fellows?”
“There’s the man that maybe took it, De Bray,” said Wild Bill, striking another match and indicating the body of Lawless, “and,” he added enigmatically, “maybe didn’t.”
“He looks like the fellow, all right,” said De Bray, bending down and pushing his hands into the dead man’s pockets, “but he isn’t wearing the same clothes.”
“Him Lawless, all same,” spoke up the voice of Cayuse; “paleface that rob stage him not Lawless, only look like um and wear um clothes.”
“Hey?” cried the startled Nomad, whirling on the boy. “Come ag’in with thet, Cayuse.”
Cayuse repeated his words, adding: “Me crawl in here, try find white woman. No find white woman, find um Lawless, instead. Yousabe? Think um Lawlesswhite woman, all same dead. Ugh! Him plenty dark, Little Cayuse in heap big hurry, make um mistake.”
“It’s all right, the way it has turned out, Cayuse,” said Wild Bill. “Under the circumstances, the mistake was only a natural one to make, but it gave Gentleman Jim quite a jolt. How about the outlaws?”
“Two of um gone to happy place,” said the boy; “other one him live, mebbyso.”
“‘Happy place,’” grunted Nomad. “Thet ain’t what I’d call et’, hey, Wild Bill?”
“Not exactly,” said Wild Bill. “Suppose we use up our matches trying to help De Bray locate his money?”
They searched for an hour, but fruitlessly.
“They’ve buried it, or something,” said De Bray, when the search was given up. “In the morning it might be a good thing to ride to this Chavorta Gorge place, and see what’s going on over there.”
“Good idea,” approved Wild Bill.
At that moment Gentleman Jim called Nomad and the rest, and they went out, to find the gambler and his wife standing side by side, the gambler’s arm about his wife’s waist.
“Boys,” said Gentleman Jim, in a voice resonant with feeling, “they say it’s always darkest just before dawn. It has seemed to have been that way with me. This little woman, dearer to me than any one else in the world, has been hunting the West over for a year, trying to locate me. It was in Montegordo that she got the clue that brought her toward Sun Dance. What do you think that clue was?”
None of the others could guess.
“Why,” exclaimed Gentleman Jim happily, “it was apublished account of Buffalo Bill’s exploits, that time he went to Forty Thieves Mine, to stay for three days and nights. My name—or, rather, my sobriquet of ‘Gentleman Jim’—was mixed up in the account, and Allie took a chance on that sobriquet belonging to me. You have all seen how it turned out. She and I are going back to Sun Dance now. I’ll leave you to wind up the rest of this affair, for I’m too happy myself to be of much use to anybody. If you ride to Chavorta Gorge in the morning, don’t fail to tell Buffalo Bill what has happened.”
Three horses belonging to the outlaws were found, farther along the gully. One of these horses was tendered to Mrs. Brisco for her use, and she and her husband started for Sun Dance without further delay.
A little later Hank Tenny, with three prisoners, all on led horses, was started in the same direction. Two horses carried the prisoners. One was the man who had been wounded in the gully, and he was given a horse to himself: the other two men—Coomby and Tex—were secured to the remaining Cayuse.
It was sunrise before Little Cayuse, on his borrowed Cheyenne pony, Wild Bill, Nomad, and De Bray mounted and started for Chavorta Gorge.
They had Gentleman Jim’s instructions as to the course they should take, but these instructions were unnecessary, now that Cayuse was one of the party. The boy, in his soldiering days, had become familiar with the country, and proved an excellent guide.
But Nomad and his pards never reached Chavorta Gorge. Half a dozen miles from the gap, and about midwaybetween the ridge and Medicine Bluff, the party met the scout and Dell.
Behind the scout, and securely roped to Bear Paw, was the leader of the men who had held up the stage—the bogus Captain Lawless.
As the two parties approached each other, Buffalo Bill thrust a hand into his pocket and held up a roll of bills.
“How does this look to you, De Bray?” the scout cried, as he galloped forward.
“What is it, Buffalo Bill?” asked De Bray. “Money?”
“I should say so! Twenty one-thousand-dollar bills.”
“Then all I can say is that it looks good to me; but I think I feel better over the fact that Mrs. Brisco has been found, alive and well, than I do over the recovery of my money.”
“Then she has been found?” asked Dell, her eyes dancing.
“Thet’s what,” said Nomad; “she was over by Medicine Bluff. Lawless was there, too——”
The scout had halted, his horse to shake hands with his pards and congratulate them; but, at these words from Nomad, he turned a startled look in his old pard’s direction.
“What are you talking about, Nick?” Buffalo Bill demanded. “How could you find Lawless at Medicine Bluff, when he was at Pima?”
“Let Cayuse tell yer erbout thet,” grinned Nomad.
“Me send um picture-writing,” spoke up Cayuse. “Make um two pictures, all same, burro’s ears over one. You nosabe? One Captain Lawless, other no Captain Lawless. Both look all same.”
Dell laughed.
“But I can’t understand, Cayuse,” said she, “how you’d expect Buffalo Bill to guess that from a pair of burro’s ears.”
“Him hard thing to tell on birch-bark,” said Little Cayuse.