CHAPTER XI.THE MAN WITH A WARNING.
Nothing could have been more peaceful, that bright, sunny morning, than the surroundings of the Star-A ranch.
Buffalo Bill and Wild Bill sat out under the trees, a dozen yards from the ranch-house door. They were smoking their pipes and contemplating, with much satisfaction, the happy and peaceful scene before them.
“By gorry, pard,” said the Laramie man, “just hear the girl in that old log shack tune up that pretty bazoo of hers. Every once in a while she breaks into song. Joyful? Well, I reckon!”
“Contrast this scene with another of two days ago,” returned Buffalo Bill. “The cattle barons, headed by Lige Benner and Hank Phelps, were doing their best to run Perry out of the Brazos country. Dunbar had been treacherously waylaid and was being held a captive; Perry had been made a prisoner and was in ropes at the H-P ranch; and the girl had been spirited away by Lige Benner, who hoped to break her will and make her agree to become his wife. Then we came, Hickok—you, and I, and the rest of our pards—and shook up the whole bag of tricks. Dunbar and Perry were released, and the marriage knot was tied by the sky pilot, while the lot of us were racing away from Benner, Phelps and forty of their cowboys. What we did was certainly worth while.”
“I’ve never helped to do anything, pard,” returnedWild Bill, “that I look back on with so much satisfaction.”
“Nor I. We have cause to congratulate ourselves.”
At that moment Nate Dunbar rode up to the cabin door on his favorite riding horse. He was prepared for a journey of some length, it seemed.
Dropping down from the saddle, he turned to throw his arms about his wife, who had hurried through the door to bid him good-by.
The pards turned their heads. When they looked up again, Nate Dunbar’s horse was in front of them, and the fine-looking young cowboy, his face wreathed in smiles, was on the ground and reaching out his hand.
“I’m off for town, amigos,” said he, “and I may be gone for two days. There are supplies to be bought, cowboys to be hired, and plenty of other business to be looked after. Dick thinks I’m the one to go. It was hard for Hattie to agree, but she always comes to time when she understands a thing is for the best.”
As the scout got up and wrung his hand, Dunbar bent forward to whisper:
“And there’s the wedding present for Hattie, you know. I didn’t have time to attend to that yesterday, when we were spliced on horseback, at twenty miles an hour! But now,” and he withdrew his hand to slap a jingling pocket, “I’ve both the time and the money, and Hattie’s going to have a ring with a hundred-dollar ‘spark’ in it. Oh, I’m sure one happy man, pards, and we all know we have Buffalo Bill and his friends to thank for it!”
“It has been pleasure enough for me and my pards to get you out of your tangle here, Nate,” said the scout.
“Which is no dream at all, Dunbar,” laughed WildBill. “When Pard Cody puts up a talk like that, he reflects the feelings of all his pards. May your shadow never grow less, amigo mio, and may you never say a word that clouds the bright face of the girl in yonder cabin. She’s the biggest prize that will ever come to you in this life.”
“Truer words were never spoken!” declared Dunbar, flashing an affectionate glance at the cabin. “I’m hoping, Buffalo Bill, that you and your pards will stay here till I get back. I feel positive all our troubles are behind us, but my mind will be easier about the Star-A ranch if I know that you are here until I get back with an outfit of cowboys.”
“Don’t worry, Nate,” said the scout reassuringly. “We’ll have to stay. The baron, old Nomad and Little Cayuse have gone to Dinkelmann’s ranch for a day or two, so Hickok and I will have to stay here till they come back.”
“Gracias!” Deep feeling throbbed in Nate Dunbar’s voice as he added: “No man ever had better friends than Buffalo Bill and pards, and neither Hattie, nor Dick, nor I will ever forget what we owe you. I’d crawl the length of the Lone Star State to do any of you a good turn. Adios!”
Nate Dunbar jumped for his saddle, his spurs rattled, and he vanished along the trail through the timber, laying a course for Hackamore.
“That lad’s the clear quill, Pard Cody,” declared Hickok, gazing after Dunbar and wagging his head. “He’ll go far and do well, mark what I say. But he seems to think that he’s not through with the hostile cattle barons.”
“I don’t think he has any cause to be worried,” saidthe scout. “Hank Phelps, if what I hear is true, has thrown up his hands and will have nothing more to do with the lawless element on the Brazos. Lige Benner is the only source of possible trouble; but, with public opinion setting in strong for the Perrys, I don’t believe Benner will dare let his animosity show itself. He——”
The scout halted abruptly. Through the timber behind him and the Laramie man came a rider at speed, his horse lathered and blowing. The man in the saddle was long and lean; his thin, hatchet-like face was full of excitement. As he threw himself from his horse, the animal staggered drunkenly with feet wide apart.
“Suffering horn toads!” exclaimed the Laramie man, passing his gaze from the nearly spent horse to the excited newcomer. “From the looks of your horse, neighbor, I reckon you only hit an occasional high place for a good distance back.”
“We flew,” grinned the man, “but we had ter. Ain’t forgot me, have ye?”
He looked at Wild Bill ingratiatingly.
“Dot and carry one!” cried Wild Bill, recognizing the newcomer suddenly. “Can this be Sim Pierce, the gent I came company front with in Hackamore? Sim Pierce, scion of the Pierces of San Antone?”
“Aw’ shucks!” said Sim Pierce deprecatingly, drawing a bar of chewing from his hip pocket, and loading himself with one corner of it.
Returning the tobacco to his pocket, he dropped down on the bench on which the pards were sitting, chewed wide and reflectively for a few moments, and hooked up one knee between his hands.
“Sim,” remarked Wild Bill, after the silence had begun to grow embarrassing, “did you ride your caballo intoa quiver just to come here and show Buffalo Bill and me how you handle a plug of Cowboy’s Pride?”
“Waal, not so you kin notice,” answered Sim. “I was glad I seen ye out hyer by yerselves. It gives me a chanst ter onbosom myself without lettin’ the Perrys savvy.”
“Perrys! Only one Perry and two Dunbars live in that house now.”
“Which I stand kerrected. Buffler Bill an’ pards have shore done a heap fer the Perrys an’ Nate Dunbar. Gosh-all-whittaker! Say, I’d have given my boots ter see a weddin’ in the saddle, hosses slashin’ erlong like all-possessed, sky pilot pufformin’ like he never done afore! Say, I’ll bet that was some fine as a spectacle.”
“Some, and that’s a fact, Sim,” said Wild Bill. “But you’re not telling why you raced up here like a scared coyote looking for home and mother. Does it pain you any to get down to cases?”
“Hyer’s where I git at it,” answered Sim. “That sky pilot, Jordan, the feller as done the knot tyin’ while the hosses was at a run, sent me hyer. He had a message fer Buffler Bill an’ pards.”
“Ah,” spoke up the scout. “What was the message?”
“‘Tell Buffler Bill,’ says the sky pilot, ‘not ter leave the Star-A ranch fer a spell yit. Tell him,’ he says further, ‘that ther trouble ain’t over fer ther Perrys.’ Things is hatchin’ right this minit, he allows, over ter Lige Benner’s. Lige ain’t feelin’ none too good over the way he got done up, an’ he’s plannin’ ter cut loose with some other kind of er rough house.”
“How did Jordan discover that?” queried Buffalo Bill.
“One o’ Benner’s men, who’s a friend o’ Jordan’s, sprung a leak. The sky pilot got all worked up. He’s anervy ombray, that same Jordan, but he’s been takin’ more physical exercise lately than what he kin stand. He’s laid up fer repairs in the DelmonicoHo-tel in Hackamore.”
“Not sick?”
“Not him—jest tired like. Preachin’ the Gospel is some differn’t from makin’ er splice in the saddle with the hosses jest er-smokin’. Right strenyus work fer a sky pilot, I callthat.”
“What sort of deviltry is Lige Benner hatching, Sim?” went on the scout.
“Benner’s man didn’t say—mebby he didn’t know—but he allowed it was ter be pulled off some suddent. Jordan thought you fellers might git a line on purceedin’s an’ use yore original, Cody brand o’ kybosh.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all. I’ll now go over ter the c’ral, put out my hoss an’ hang eround till arter dinner; then I’ll p’int fer Hackamore. Whar’s Nate?”
“Gone to town. You’d have passed him if you’d come the regular trail.”
“Shucks! Say, I was in sich a big hurry that I kim ’cross lots. Waal, hyer’s fer ther c’ral.”
Sim Pierce stepped toward his horse and laid hold of the bridle reins.
“Mind, Sim,” warned the scout as the man moved off, “not a word about this to Mrs. Dunbar or Perry. There may be nothing to it, and there’s no need of arousing the fears of those in the house.”
“Shore not,” flung back Pierce over his shoulder as he moved away with his horse. “I’ll keep mum, all right.”
“What do you think about this, Hickok?” queried thescout thoughtfully, when he and the Laramie man were again alone.
“I don’t think that sky pilot would have sent Sim with a warning unless there was good ground for worry.”
“My notion, exactly. Jordan isn’t a man to shy at trifles. But how are we to know what’s taking place at Benner’s ranch?”
“I’ve got a way for discovering that, pard. Listen.”
With that, the Laramie man settled back and freed his mind of a daring expedient which had abruptly occurred to him.
“It might be safe enough for Buffalo Bill or one of his pards to call at Lige Benner’s ranch, but if one of us dropped in there, compadre, how much would he find out?”
“Not much, and that’s a fact,” said Buffalo Bill. “Benner is the kind of a snake-in-the-grass that strikes from cover, and he hunts his cover well. If you or I went to his place, Hickok, we might or might not come away with our scalps; but—and mark this—if anything happened to us, Lige Benner would fix things so he could prove an alibi.”
“Right-o. I wasn’t thinking along that line, however. If Benner is laying his wires, Buffalo Bill or his pards wouldn’t be able to discover anything; but if some one went there who wasn’t known to be one of Cody’s pards, there’d be a fine opportunity for getting a line on Benner.”
“Well, yes. I’m not catching your drift, though, Hickok.”
“Here’s the drift: Suppose I fix up in different clothes and ride to Benner’s? Maybe I’m a cowpuncher hunting a job, and maybe I’m a Jew peddler, or any other thingthat seems most likely to fill the bill. Benner wouldn’t know me from Adam, and I’m willing to gamble my spurs that I’d uncover a pay streak of information.”
The scout shook his head dubiously.
“Benner and all his men know you, pard,” said he. “It’s a question whether you could hide your identity so they wouldn’t know you. If you blew in there in a disguise, and they discovered who you were, there’d be fireworks and fatalities. Is it worth the risk?”
“Not is it worth the risk, pard, but is there a chance that the risk would work out? Personally, I wouldn’t be averse to a little excitement, but——”
“That’s the way you always stack up, Hickok, and that’s the point that would work most against you.”
“But,” went on Hickok, “I understand my responsibilities, and that, if I don’t get away without arousing suspicion, what information I pick up won’t do Perry or the Dunbars any good. Which and wherefore is the reason I’ll play my cards with care and caution. Besides, you know how well I can make up. If I wasn’t a pard of Cody’s, and mired in the West, I reckon I’d be on the stage. Am I, or am I not, an actor?”
“You are,” laughed the scout; “one of the best actors I’ve seen in many a day. I remember how you played the part of a vaquero, over in Arizona, and fooled the rest of your pards.”
“Ah! Well, if I could fool my pards, why can’t I fool Benner and his outfit? I can, and I will. Just give me leave to try, that’s all.”
The scout reflected. When Wild Bill left only the scout would be with Perry and Mrs. Dunbar. If Benner and his men tried to make a raid on the Star-A, there would be merry doings to follow and perhaps some lossesof Star-A property. But a raid was too open a warfare for Benner, the scout knew. The unscrupulous cattleman liked best a covert and more reprehensible hostility—something like a bullet from ambush, or a knife in the back. But, after the lesson Benner had received at the hands of the scout and his pards, it was doubtful whether he would even dare to launch lead from cover. If he was planning reprisal against Perry and Dunbar, Benner would proceed by more devious ways to effect his purposes. It was necessary that his plans should be known so that they might be guarded against.
“While we’re hemming and hawing and sidestepping, pard,” spoke up Wild Bill, “the plot is thickening over at Benner’s. And Benner’s, you know, is a good two hours’ ride down the Brazos. Come to centre quick, so I can mosey along—if I’m going.”
“We’re not at all sure there’s any plotting going on at Benner’s,” said the scout.
“So far as that goes, we’re not sure of much of anything in this world but death and taxes. Anyhow, Pard Cody, about two minutes ago you rose to remark that Jordan wasn’t a man to send a messenger with a warning unless there was really something on the carpet.”
“Nor do I think he is,” answered the scout. “Jordan, for a sky pilot, is about as clear-headed, practical a man as I ever met. But suppose it was part of Benner’s game to steer this man of his against the sky pilot with a fake report of trouble brewing? What if that’s a part of Benner’s plan?”
“How would Benner gain anything by that?” asked Wild Bill, wrinkling his brows over this new phase of the matter.
“He might gain just the point you’re suggesting—thatone of us ride to his ranch for investigation. Perhaps that’s what he’s working for.”
“So he can get hold of one of us?”
“Possibly.”
“Well, Benner’s long-headed, Pard Cody, but he’s not so long-headed as all that comes to. I’ll gamble that Benner’s man who tipped off the sky pilot was acting in good faith. We know Jordan has friends at Benner’s; and maybe Perry has a few there, too, and that they’re trying to show friendship in the only way they dare, and hold their jobs. Which is it, yes or no?”
“Go ahead,” said the scout; “but, if you’re not back by some time to-night, you’ll know I’m hitting the trail on the hunt for you.”
“I’ll get back, and don’t you forget that. Stay right here for half an hour and I’ll show you something.”
Wild Bill, as he spoke, got up from the bench. A moment later he had disappeared in the bunk house behind the ranch headquarters.
The scout, filling and lighting his pipe, leaned back on the bench and gave way to reflections that were not wholly agreeable.
Here, where he and his friends had wrought peace and happiness on the Star-A section of the Brazos, had suddenly appeared the ugly, serpent-like head of under-handed war.
Perry, just when he was securing the respect and confidence of the cattlemen up and down the river—excepting Benner, of course—might be called on to face more troubles. And of these he had had enough, and more than enough.
Mr. and Mrs. Dunbar, too, might be rudely disturbed in their new-found dream of happiness. This possibilitythe scout regretted deeply, for he had taking a great liking to Dunbar and his wife, and would have gone far to insure their tranquil future.
The scout wished that he had not allowed the baron, the trapper and the little Piute to leave Perry’s for the Dinkelmann ranch. If clouds were really beginning to show in the peaceful skies, all the pards should be corraled in one place, ready to hurl their united strength against any quarter of the compass from which a sudden call might come.
“Podner, who lives hyer?”
The raucous voice broke in suddenly on the scout’s reflections. Lifting his eyes he stared at about as ornery a specimen of the genus hobo as he had ever set eyes on.
The man’s face was dirty; his slouch hat was full of bullet holes and the crown was loose and flapping. Through the crown protruded a few stray locks of unkempt hair. Over the man’s left eye was a red handkerchief bandage. His face was dirty. His ragged blue flannel shirt and his torn, greasy trousers were belted in at the waist with a section of frayed rope. On one foot he wore a boot, and on the other a moccasin. But he was riding a good horse, well accoutred—a horse the scout recognized as Wild Bill’s.
“Get off that horse, you!” cried the scout, rising sternly. “If——”
The scout’s voice trailed into silence, and the silence was broken by a hearty laugh from the man in the saddle.
“By gorry,” came the familiar tones of the Laramie man, “if I didn’t fool the king of scouts himself, I’m a yap! Whoosh! You must have mislaid the eagle eye, pard! What chance has Benner got to get next to me if you went so wide of the mark?”
The scout joined in his pard’s laugh.
“You’ll do, Wild Bill,” said he, “all but the horse. Your get-up don’t jibe with the riding gear and the animal you’re riding. The horse and trappings will be a dead give-away.”
“Nary, Pard Cody. The horse and trappings are going to be a big help.”
“How?”
“Why, look. I come breezing up to Benner’s hangout with a yarn to the effect that I lifted the horse at the Star-A. That ought to get me in with Benner, if he’s at all crooked. A man who’ll steal a horse will probably be the sort of a chap he’d like to use in his present game of cold deck and loaded ivories. I’ve the medicine tongue for a job like that, don’t you think?”
“You’re one of the most resourceful men in a pinch I ever saw, Hickok,” declared the scout. “Lay your own plans and carry them out in your own way, but be sure and get back here to-night.”
“That’s me. When I come, I’ll come loaded.”
“With information, I hope, and with none of Benner’s lead. So long, and good luck to you.”
“Adios!”
Wild Bill kicked his heels into Beeswax’s ribs and started through the timber, en route down the river and headed for Benner’s.
“He’ll make good,” thought the scout, “and if there’s anything brewing at trouble headquarters, Wild Bill will hustle back with the news.”
Getting up from the bench, he knocked the ashes out of his pipe and went to join Perry and Sim Pierce in front of the cabin.