CHAPTER XVI.HELD BY THE ENEMY.
Wild Bill was a terribly surprised man. He didn’t mind the jolt of his fall, nor the roughness with which the cattlemen treated him, but the blow to his confidence was a hard thing for him to get over.
He fought as long as he could, and only ceased his struggles when ropes made it impossible for him to move.
The set-to had disarranged his entire make-up, and had even caused him to lose a portion of it. Under the ragged garments he wore his usual costume, and the amazement of Lige Benner was great when he discovered that his prisoner was no less a person than Wild Bill himself.
“You came here in disguise to spy on me, did you, Wild Bill?” scowled Lige Benner, looking down on his captive and wondering what he should do with him.
“I came here to find out what I could about your criminal doings,” answered Wild Bill, “and it’s dollars to chalk marks that I’ve seen and heard enough to put a rope around your neck. A nice sort of respectable cattle baron you are!”
“He’s too blame’ mouthy!” growled Red Steve. “The thing ter do with him is ter put him whar he kain’t bother us.”
“I’ll do that,” returned Benner.
“How’s my horse?” asked the Laramie man.
“Nothin’ wrong with the caballo,” said one of the cowboys.
“Take good care of him. I told you, Hawkins,” Wild Bill went on to the White Cap, “that Beeswax could lay down and roll over with me.”
“He done it, all right,” returned Hawkins, with a sputter of profanity. “But I reckon it was a put-up job, an’ that ye didn’t calculate ter have it that-a-way.” He turned to Lige Benner and Red Steve. “Say, you fellers goin’ ter let Wild Bill keep his hair arter the way he’s fooled us? Why, he knows enough ter make us all a mighty sick lot, I can tell ye.”
“I’ll take care of Wild Bill,” said Benner shortly. “Carry him up to the cabin.”
Wild Bill was lifted by four men and toted up the hill to the adobe house. He saw Jerry on a horse in front of the cabin as he was carried toward the door.
“You kept him from getting away, eh, Lige?” chirruped the hunchback. “That’s good, mighty good! Keep a tight hold on him, Lige. When I get back, some time to-night, I want to see that fellow here.”
“You’ll see him here, Jerry, and don’t you forget that,” answered Benner.
Jerry, with a look of malicious triumph at Wild Bill, whirled his horse and started toward the trail for Hackamore. The prisoner was carried on through the living room of the house and dropped on the bed in the rear chamber. Benner drove everybody out but Red Steve, then drew up a chair to the head of the bed and sat down.
“Why did you do this, Hickok?” he asked, with a black scowl.
“You know why I did it,” was the reply. “What’s the use of threshing that all over again?”
“You’ve put me in a hard position.”
“Not half so hard as you’ll be in later, Benner. You can wipe me off the slate, if you want to, but that’s not going to help your case any. Buffalo Bill knows I came here, and if I don’t get back to the Star-A ranch he’ll know what’s happened to me. You’re going to get scratched, Benner, no matter which way the cat jumps.”
Benner’s face was a study.
“How much did you find out?” he demanded.
“A heap more than I expected to,” was Wild Bill’s answer.
“He’s buffaloed us oncet, Lige,” said Red Steve, “an’ don’t let him do it ag’in. His light kin be snuffed so’st nobody’ll ever know who done it. I’ll take the job.”
“Not yet awhile,” returned Benner. “See that he’s bound so he can’t slip the ropes, Steve, and then put your men on guard around the house.”
“I’ll stay right in this hyer room with him, if ye want,” offered Red Steve.
“That’s not what I want. You can stay at the door of the living room, and you can put one or two men at the outside window, but Wild Bill stays in here alone.”
It was evident that Lige Benner hesitated to trust Red Steve alone with the prisoner. The fiery-haired Texan would perhaps have taken matters into his own hands, in spite of Benner’s orders.
“Ye needn’t be afeared I’d sponge him out, Lige,” leered Red Steve, catching the drift of arrangements.
“If you tried that,” said Benner, “you’d get sponged out yourself. I’m going to have the country watched, all around the ranch. If Buffalo Bill, or any of hispards, come here looking for Hickok, we’ll have them before we know what they’re doing.”
“Purvidin’ they’re reckernized,” qualified Red Steve. “I hadn’t a notion Gringo Pete was Wild Bill—an’ I looked Gringo Pete over mighty close, too. Say, he’s some on playin’ a part, Wild Bill is.”
“You’re a very accomplished man, Wild Bill,” said Benner, with some sarcasm, “but this time your accomplishments have loaded you up with more trouble than you can handle.”
“It looks that way, for a fact,” returned the Laramie man cheerfully. “Would you mind telling me, Benner, how you happened to learn I wasn’t what I seemed?”
“Jerry got next to that. Jerry can get next to anything in the lame-duck line.”
“Which indicates that Jerry also has his accomplishments,” grinned Wild Bill. “But how did he turn the trick against me?”
Benner explained that point in a few words. Wild Bill cast a rueful look in the direction of the fireplace.
“If I hadn’t been a little shy on reasoning myself,” he muttered, “this wouldn’t have happened, and I’d now be on the way to the Star-A. Nobody but myself to blame. Go ahead and do your worst, Benner. After that, you take my advice and get out from under.”
Benner whirled on his heel, beckoned Red Steve to follow, and the two men passed out of the room. The door was closed and the bolt shoved into place.
“Same thing I heard a while ago,” reflected Wild Bill, “only the case is different. I’ve been more kinds of a chucklehead this trip than I know how to mention. Oh, I’m proud of myself! And Pard Cody will be just as proud when he finds out about it. Here I am, loadedto the guards with information that means liberty and good name for Dunbar, and perhaps life itself for Perry, and not able to do a thing to tell what I know. Pleasant situation! Mighty pleasant—if you don’t care what you say.”
The Laramie man was greatly cast down, but he never allowed chagrin or dejection to cut very deep into his optimistic nature. He was caught hard and fast in the clutch of circumstances; yet it was better to face the gloomy situation with some show of grace, than to deaden his resources by giving way to despair.
But Wild Bill was sorry for Dunbar and Perry—sorrier for them than he was for himself.
The afternoon passed. Wild Bill, his limbs cramped and numb from the ropes, twisted around on the bed and fretted for some one to talk to.
He beguiled some of the time by working at his bonds. They were knotted firmly, but he tried sawing the hempen strands in two by working the rope up and down on the side board of the bed.
These tactics might have won out if he had had two or three days to keep at them, but a few hours grinding would accomplish little.
When the shadows of evening began to settle down, the bolt was pushed back, the door opened, and Benner and Red Steve came in again, the latter bringing the prisoner’s supper.
Wild Bill’s hands were not unbound. Red Steve propped him up on the bed and fed him.
“Have you made up your mind what you’re going to do with me?” inquired the prisoner, when the meal was finished.
Lige Benner stood gloomily by with folded arms.
“You’ll be kept here to-night,” said he. “In the morning we’ll know how your account is to be settled.”
Red Steve looked at the ropes, reported that the prisoner had been tampering with them, and tied them in such a way that the sawing on the side board of the bed could not be continued.
“You’ll not be able to get away from here, Hickok,” said Benner. “Even if you got rid of your ropes, you couldn’t get out; and if you got out, you’d be dropped in your tracks by a bullet before you’d gone a dozen yards. You’ll have to make the most of it. You’ve forced my hand and will have to take the consequences.”
“All right,” answered Wild Bill amiably. “But wait till this trail’s run out before you do any talking. I’ve got pards that won’t care a whoop for you and your Circle-B outfit when they learn what’s happened to me.”
Red Steve picked up the empty dishes, and he and Benner again left the room.
From then on, while the night steadily deepened, Wild Bill allowed certain possible events to pass in review. Already, no doubt, Jerry Benner had worked his plot against Dunbar. Word of Dunbar’s predicament had gone to the Star-A ranch, and the scout had started at once for Hackamore with Perry. On the way to the town, the White Caps would lay for Buffalo Bill and Perry.
Wild Bill chuckled as his mind took up that phase of the question.
“I’d like to be around and see what Pard Cody does to those White Caps,” he muttered.
The hours passed while he reflected. Stygian darkness settled down on the bedroom, only a lightish blur marking the window opening. Wild Bill could hear RedSteve moving around in the living room, and he could hear some one outside the window; but he heard something else—something that caused him to give over his reflections and centre his attentions on the peculiar noise. The sound was like a muffled scraping, and it was coming steadily nearer. Wild Bill tried to locate it, but the darkness confused him and he could not.
At last he heard deep breathing, stifled to the merest rasping whisper, accompanying muffled footfalls. A form, barely distinguishable, reached the bed. Wild Bill was about to speak, when a hand dropped over his lips.
“Cork!” whispered a husky voice. “I’m Ace Hawkins, an’ if ye breathe a word out loud, things’ll go hard fer the two o’ us. We’ll palaver a spell.”
For a moment the Laramie man was dazed. Ace Hawkins, one of Red Steve’s White Caps, there in the room with him! And he had come in stealthily! Why?
Quick as lightning, Wild Bill’s brain solved the problem in what he conceived the most logical way.
The White Caps were taking the fate of the prisoner in their own hands. Benner was not desperate enough to suit them. They would put the prisoner out of the way without letting Benner know anything about the proceeding until it was too late for him to interfere.
Wild Bill tried to sink his teeth into the hand that smothered his lips.
“Quit that, you!” hissed Hawkins. “What fer kind of way is that ter act? Ain’t I come here ter help ye, runnin’ all kinds o’ risks? Red Steve is at the door of the other room, an’ Shorty Dobbs an’ Splinters Gibson is outside the winder. I was around the side o’ the house, an’ took my life in my hands, by climbin’ to theroof an’ comin’ down the chimbly. I’d be skelped good an’ proper if Red Steve knowed whar I was.”
Was Wild Bill dreaming all this? Ace Hawkins, who had seemed to be the most savage of the White Caps, was sneaking around and running the risk of life itself in order to do him a good turn. Naturally, the Laramie man couldn’t believe it.
“That’s a good yarn, Hawkins,” murmured Wild Bill.
“It’s straight,” protested Hawkins.
“I don’t believe such a crooked coyote as you are could talk straight if he tried.”
“Then ye got an eye-opener comin’ ter you. Ye come hyer, didn’t ye, bekase the sky pilot sent a warnin’ from Hackamore?”
“That’s a bull’s-eye hit, anyhow.”
“Did ye hyer how the sky pilot got tipped off ter the trouble a-brewin’ at the Circle-B?”
“I heard that a friend of his, from the Circle-B outfit, gave him the news.”
“Which is kerrect. I’m thet thar friend.”
“You? One of Red Steve’s White Caps! Say, Hawkins, you’re piling it on pretty thick.”
“I ain’t so tough as what ye reckon, Wild Bill. Jordan, the sky pilot, has showed me the error o’ my ways, he has, an’ I’m tryin’ ter be white. I useter be bad enough, but I’m differ’nt now.”
“How are you different? Haven’t you tangled up with Red Steve’s White Caps? Is that the way you’re trying to be ‘white?’ Don’t take any more falls out of the truth, Hawkins. If you’re here to do me up, go ahead.”
A muffled exclamation broke from Hawkins’ lips.
“I j’ined the White Caps so’st I could keep track of’em an’ of Red Steve,” he averred. “I wanted ter git a chanst ter back-cap ’em, same as what I’m doin’ now. I’m ready ter prove it, Wild Bill. Wait!”
Again Hawkins bent over Wild Bill. The prisoner felt the cowboy’s groping hands at his wrists, and then cold, sharp steel bit at the hempen strands.
Wild Bill, his wonder growing, pulled his arms in front of him. While he was rubbing his hands to restore circulation, Hawkins was using the knife at his ankles.
“Now,” whispered Hawkins, “ye’re free. Does that prove anythin’? Am I straight goods, er ain’t I?”
“You seem to be all right,” returned Wild Bill, sitting up on the edge of the bed, “but this may all be a play to help Red Steve get the best of me.”
“Hyer!”
Hawkins pressed something into Wild Bill’s hands. They were a couple of six-shooters.
“Them’s yourn,” went on Hawkins. “Red Steve give ’em ter me ter take keer of, when ye was landed on at the foot o’ the hill. Yer hoss is in the grove whar he was left that other time. I’ve got the saddle an’ bridle on him. All ye got ter do, Wild Bill, is ter crawl up the chimbly, git ter the ground same as I come up, go down the hill an’ git inter the saddle. I’ll go with ye, an’ we’ll talk further. Yore move is ter git back ter the Star-A an’ tell Buffler Bill what ye know. Ye ort ter hev made that move afore, but thar wasn’t no way I could help pull it off till now.”
Wild Bill had been pleasantly disappointed. He had thought Hawkins was a foe, and here he was turning out to be a friend. The Laramie man reached out gropingly in the dark.
“Where’s your fist, Hawkins?” he murmured.
“Hyer.”
Wild Bill shook the hand.
“You’re a whole man, Hawkins,” went on Wild Bill. “I’d never have believed this of you if I hadn’t gone through it personally.”
“Ye needn’t thank me,” said Hawkins deprecatingly. “Thank the sky pilot. If it hadn’t been fer him, I’d be here clamorin’ fer yer skelp. The sky pilot advised me ter hang on with Steve an’ Benner, playin’ a double part an’ watchin’ my chance ter do a good turn fer right an’ jestice. But we kain’t stand hyer palaverin’. It ain’t safe. Any minit Red Steve may come in, an’ the fat ’u’d be in the fire. Ye’ve been in that chimbly oncet, an’ hyer’s whar ye foller me up ag’in. Come on, an’ come quiet.”
Hawkins guided Wild Bill across the room to the fireplace; then, getting inside, the two men mounted up and up, planting their feet on the projecting stones and wedging themselves in the flue with their arms and elbows.
Great care had to be exercised in order not to alarm Red Steve. The Laramie man had not forgotten that the two flues constituted a whispering gallery, and that unusual noises in the chimney would reach the ears of any one in the living room.
But Red Steve may have been half dozing. At any rate, he heard nothing and was not aroused.
Hawkins was first to climb over the top of the big chimney. As Wild Bill followed him, they could hear Shorty Dobbs and Splinters Gibson talking below, near the window at the end of the adobe house.
“So fur, so good,” whispered Hawkins, “but we ain’t out o’ the woods yit. We’ll have ter hang ter the aidge o’ the roof an’ drap. I’ll drap fust, then you foller.”
Like a shadow, Hawkins lowered himself from the roof’s edge and let go. A slight thump came back to Wild Bill.
It was not a long drop—the house was only a one-story affair—but there was a chance to sprain an ankle, for all that.
Wild Bill slipped carefully from the edge of the roof, hung a moment, and then loosened his fingers. His foot struck on a stone, and he fell with quite a scramble. There was a stir around the corner, and a dark form showed itself.
Hawkins pressed Wild Bill down on the ground with a quick hand.
“What ther nation is goin’ on, Ace?” called a voice.
“Nawthin’,” answered Hawkins. “I jest fell asleep standin’ up, an’ tumbled over.”
“Waal, keep yer eyes open. Splinters says we’re goin’ ter ride ter the Star-A purty soon.”
The form disappeared, and Ace Hawkins drew a long breath of relief.
“Now fer down hill,” he murmured, “an’ the quicker we skin out, the better.”
With Hawkins leading, the two moved noiselessly down the slope, in the direction of the river and the little grove of trees.
“Hyer we aire, all serene,” said Hawkins, “an’ yore hoss is right ferninst ye, Wild Bill.”
“I can see him,” answered the Laramie man. “I’ll not be bagged again, Hawkins.”
“Lige Benner has got watchers out, all around the camp. Ye’ll hev ter git clear without causin’ any ruction, if possible, an’ I’d suggest that ye ride in the water, a little off the bank. The Brazos ain’t bein’ watchedso much as the trails. Mebby ye’ll git away without trouble. I’m hopin’ so, anyways.”
“What’re you goin’ to do, Hawkins?”
“I’m stayin’ with the White Caps. That’s what the sky pilot said fer me ter do.”
“But when they find out that I’ve got away, more than likely you’ll be suspected.”
“I don’t reckon so.”
“Your safest move is to come with me.”
“I’m goin’ ter stay on, with the White Caps an’ try ter pervent them kerryin’ out any deviltry. Thar’s a lot o’ it on the programme, as I reckon ye know.”
Wild Bill passed to his horse, unhitched the animal and got into the saddle.
“Don’t let the brute lay down an’ roll over with ye,” said Ace Hawkins humorously.
“Nary, pard,” chuckled Wild Bill; “nor I won’t walk lame or play dead for Benner and his gang any more. But I’d sure like to do something to get even with you for this night’s work.”
“What I’m doin’ I’m doin’ on account o’ the sky pilot. He’s a friend o’ Perry’s.”
“All right, Hawkins, let it go at that. Has that hunchback returned from Hackamore yet?”
“I reckon not.”
“You think the White Caps are going to make a move against Perry and Buffalo Bill?”
“They’ll move ag’in Perry. Prob’ly some un has come in with news, an’ that’s why the White Caps aire gittin’ ready ter move. What the news is I don’t know. But you hustle ter tell Buffler Bill what ye know. Thar’s been sich a delay gittin’ you loose that the scout’ll have to make his play ag’in long odds; but, like as not, aquick move fer Perry an’ Dunbar’ll put ’em right. If I kin——”
At that moment a call for Hawkins came from up the hill.
“The White Caps is waitin’ fer me,” added Hawkins hastily. “Ride the river fer a mile, then take ter the trail. Adios!”
With an answer to the call from above on his lips, Ace Hawkins hurried out of the grove.
Wild Bill waited for nothing further but spurred to the river’s edge and into the water; then, turning Beeswax in the direction of the Star-A he proceeded cautiously to pass the guards posted by Benner.