CHAPTER VIII.SAVED FROM DEATH.
In a position from which all parts of the rocky basin could be seen, Buffalo Bill assembled his men and unfolded his program.
“Holmes will not stay all night among the rocks down there,” he said. “He may start on before dark, though my opinion is that he won’t unless he should see us coming down the hill toward him. He is probably facing the hill now, on the watch for us. As he will not get a glimpse of us during daylight, he will conclude that we have not been able to make fast time in the pursuit.”
“I wish the darkness would hurry up and come,” said Carl Henson, in fierce impatience. “I am worried about Miss Wilton.”
“She is in no present danger,” replied the scout.
The sun was setting. Its rays illuminated and brought into bold relief a long peak that stood at the farther end of the basin. The peak was built of many-colored rocks laid in belts, and the effect was grandly beautiful.
On one side of the peak ran the trail that led out of the basin.
In an hour the peak and the hollow at its base would be wrapped in darkness.
“That peak seems to interest you, Cody,” said Wild Bill.
“It does, Hickok, for there I feel that the wind-up will take place.”
“Then you don’t intend that Holmes shall sneak out of the basin.”
“You have said it.”
“I get the idea. The retreat by the peak must be cut off.”
“Yes. The basin can be circled. There’ll be some tough climbing to do, but——”
“But a man of my build can easily do the trick. Good! That suits me down to the ground. Wish I could start now. By gum”—looking along the irregular wall of the basin—“I can start in daylight. The rocks offer all kinds of opportunities for concealment. What do you say, Cody? Hadn’t I better get a move on right now?”
Buffalo Bill did not answer at once. His eyes were on the spot where Rixton Holmes and Myra Wilton were resting. He saw the villain arise, take the girl by the arm and point to the ponies.
“They are going to move,” he said, in some excitement. Then to Wild Bill: “Yes, you may go. You’ll have to travel fast if you expect to get to the peak before they come up.”
“Trust me,” was the quiet reply, and Wild Bill was off.
Carl Henson was so excited that he would have rushed down the hill in spite of his promise to obey Buffalo Bill’s orders, if Bart Angell had not caught him by the arm and held him back. “Keep cool, sonny,” was the big backwoodsman’s admonition. “You’ll shore hev a chance ter take part in ther circus, but you got ter remember that Buffalo Bill aire ther ringmaster.”
The king of scouts, still watching the scene in thebasin, was both relieved and delighted to observe that Holmes was having trouble with his captive. Myra Wilton had refused to mount her pony. An angry discussion was evidently taking place.
Meanwhile, Wild Bill, active as a cat and with the cunning and discretion that had so many times stood him in good stead, was making quick time toward the trail beyond the peak.
Once Myra Wilton turned and looked toward the spot where Buffalo Bill and his two companions were concealed. Did she know they were there?
The king of scouts was in doubt on this point, but the inference was that Holmes believed that she suspected help was near, for, while she was looking at the point of concealment, the villain caught her around the waist, lifted her from the ground, and, despite her struggles, began to carry her in the direction of the peak.
“Come on, boys,” said Buffalo Bill, as he leaped to his feet. “My slate is smashed. It’s now a case of get there.”
When they reached the basin, Holmes and the girl were out of sight. The huge rocks of the hollow hid them.
But as the objective point of the alarmed and desperate villain must be the peak trail, the king of scouts pressed forward, running as he never had run before.
He outstripped his companions, and was in an open space that permitted a view of the base of the peak when he stopped in amazement.
Rixton Holmes was ascending the peak. Assisted by the rocky rings, he had reached a point over fiftyfeet from the base. His strength must have been prodigious, for he still held the girl in his arms.
She was making no movement, and the king of scouts believed that she had fainted. Had he known that the brutal villain had choked her into unconsciousness, his rage might have overlapped his judgment.
Holmes saw Buffalo Bill, and stopped to draw a knife from his belt.
“Shoot, if you will,” he shouted hoarsely, “and I will drive this knife into Myra Wilton’s heart.”
“You coward,” yelled Carl Henson, who had come up and was beside himself with rage and anguish. “Come down here and have it out with me.”
Holmes laughed hoarsely. “I’m playing a safe hand,” he yelled.
“What do ye expect ter gain by this monkey business?” demanded Bart Angell, who had his rifle pointed at the villain’s head and was waiting for a chance to fire. If the girl’s head had not rested against the villain’s cheek he would have fired, anyhow. “I’m not likely ter miss, but it won’t do ter take chances,” he said sourly to himself.
“Gain?” repeated Holmes. “Satisfaction, that’s all.” His eyes were rolling wildly, and Buffalo Bill realized that he was confronting a half-crazed enemy; and he was the more dangerous on that account.
But where was Wild Bill? He had had time to reach the peak, and yet there was no sign of him.
While the king of scouts wondered at the nonappearance of his old comrade, Holmes, holding the knife in a threatening attitude, backed out of sight, and continued his ascent of the peak.
Buffalo Bill and his companions ran around the baseto make a discovery that at the moment gave them some satisfaction.
The villain’s progress had been stopped. There was a wide gap in the rings; too wide to be covered by a leap.
The path Holmes with his burden had been pursuing terminated at a narrow shelf over an almost vertical wall, which formed the back of a small cove cut out of the base of the peak. The floor of the cove was not smooth. Sharp, jagged sections of the rocky ledge upon which the base rested pointed upward.
Rixton Holmes, standing perilously on the shelf, looked down, and he gave a wild laugh as his eyes fell on the king of scouts, Bart Angell, and Carl Henson. “The jig is up,” he shrieked. “Myra Wilton is going into eternity, and I am going to follow her. I lose and you don’t win.”
“I am going to fire,” said Henson in a husky whisper. “I—I can’t stand this.”
“Wait,” sternly commanded Buffalo Bill. “If there is any shooting to be done, it must be done by me.”
As he ceased speaking, Holmes raised the limp form of the girl above his head.
“Down she goes,” he yelled, and, dazed with horror, Carl Henson started back, his rifle held in a nerveless hand.
It was a frightful moment. Buffalo Bill, whose wits had not deserted him, did not fire, though he might have done so. He realized that a shot would not save the life of the girl, for her form was held directly over the precipice, and that she would fall the instant a bullet entered the brain of the fiend who held her.
Therefore, instead of firing, he leaped into the cove, braced himself, and raised his hands.
There came a savage shout from above, and the next instant the villain fell back on the ringing rocks with Wild Bill on top of him.
The intent of the tall scout had been good, but it did not suffice to bring the girl from a position of deadly danger to one of safety.
The sudden descent of Wild Bill from above the shelf caused Holmes to relax his grip on the form of his victim.
Her senses had returned a moment before Holmes lifted her above his head. As the villain fell over under the weight of the savagely excited scout, she slipped over the edge of the precipice.
But she did not fall to the bottom. She clutched at the uneven surface of the side wall as she went, and halfway down her belt caught on a projection, and she hung there, head and feet pointing downward.
Her terrified eyes met the upturned gaze of the palefaced king of scouts.
“Raise yourself if you can,” he shouted encouragingly, “and grip that rock that has caught you.”
The attempt was made and was a failure. The girl was too weak to exert more than a small portion of her normal strength.
“Rest a bit and try again,” counseled the scout. “If you can hold on a few minutes, I’ll get you onto solid ground.”
“Can’t I do something?” said Carl Henson, his handsome face twitching with agony.
“Yes,” was the quick response; “you can run to the ponies, where Holmes left them, and get the reatas.”
The young man was off like a shot, but he never went as far as the spot where the ponies had been secured. On his way he met Bart Angell. The big backwoodsman had the reatas in his hand.
“I reckoned as how they’d shore be needed,” he said to Henson, “an’ so I jest naterally made a bee line fer ther ponies without axin’ Cody’s permission.”
When Henson and Angell reached the cove Myra Wilton had succeeded in gettin’ her hands on the rocky projection, and Wild Bill was standing on the narrow shelf above.
“Hike up here with those reatas,” Wild Bill shouted.
“I’ll take them,” said Carl Henson quickly. “I can make better time than you, Mr. Angell.”
Buffalo Bill would not leave his position under the girl. She might fall at any moment. If she did, it might be death for him and her, for there was a sheer drop of nearly fifty feet.
Bart Angell regarded the king of scouts gravely. Soon he was standing behind his comrade. “Go away, Bart,” commanded Buffalo Bill. “One is enough.”
“Maybe not, son,” was the firm reply. “If she comes, I’ll shore yank you back ther minute she strikes your arms. Thataway we’ll save some of ther pieces.”
The king of scouts tried to smile, but could not. Above him the girl was swaying about the projection that was holding her.
“I can’t hold on much longer,” she said faintly, and her voice just reached the ears of the king of scouts. “And if I let go with my hands I must fall, for the belt has given way.”
“You must hold on,” came the reply as a command. “Help is on the way.”
A shout from the shelf gave her courage. “I am here, Myra,” called out Carl Henson tremulously. “I have got ropes, and they’ll be down to you in a minute.” While he was speaking Wild Bill was twisting the reatas. In the cove Buffalo Bill breathed a sigh of deepest relief.
The transition from torturing suspense to ardent hope was scarcely set before Bart Angell screamed: “Look out, she is falling!”
He spoke the awful truth. Myra Wilton, turning to look up at her lover, had broken off the end of projection of rock about which her hands were clasped. If she had had wits about her she might have saved herself from falling, but the accident unnerved her, and she relaxed her hold on the solid, fixed, remaining section of the rock.
Carl Henson saw her fall, and would have leaped after her if Wild Bill had not seized his arm in the nick of time.
The young man was struggling in the grasp of the tall scout, when a joyous shout from the cove caused him to gaze into Wild Bill’s face in utter bewilderment.
“A miracle, I reckon,” said the scout to the young man as they both started for the shelf.
And a miracle, or something closely allied to one, had intervened to save the life of Myra Wilton. Her lover, looking down, saw her safe in the arms of Buffalo Bill.
She had not fallen straight from the projecting rock. There were other projections on the side wall of the cove. She had caught at them as she went down, and once her gown had held her up for a few seconds.When at last she fell, to be received in the arms of the king of scouts, she was not more than ten feet from the ground.
Five minutes later she was clasped to the breast of Carl Henson.
“A mighty close shave, Cody,” remarked Wild Bill, as he slapped his old comrade on the back; “mighty close. I never expected to see either you or her alive again.”
Buffalo Bill was sitting on a rock mopping his face. He was about to make some sort of response, when Myra Wilton left her lover and stood in front of him. First she smiled, and then impulsively leaned over and kissed him.
“The debt is wiped out,” he said, as he took her two hands and pressed them. “But”—he paused and smiled at Carl Henson—“you must let me dance at your wedding.”
“You shall,” she responded, with a pretty blush.
The king of scouts now gave his mind to more serious concerns. “How is it with Rixton Holmes?” he asked Wild Bill.
“It’s a case of dying, Cody. The fellow struck his cabesa on a sharp rock when he fell, and the point became acquainted with his Sarah Billium.”
“Can he talk?”
“Don’t know. I’ll bring him down for you.”
Bart Angell went with Wild Bill. They soon returned bearing the limp form of the villainous cousin of Myra Wilton.
The wound was bandaged, and whisky was forced down his throat.
Soon he opened his eyes and stared about him. Hesaw the girl he had tried to murder, and he looked into the sober, reproachful countenance of the king of scouts.
“Take the money,” he said faintly, and trying to conjure up a smile. “I’ve lost.”
He was asked to make a full confession of his crimes.
“Life is too short for that,” he replied, “but I’ll tell something about the mine affair. I would never have plotted to kill my three uncles if I hadn’t bumped up against Tom Darke. He knew me as Rixton Clay, and had no notion that I was related to the Holmeses. We became card partners, and soon I knew all his secrets. One night when he was pretty full he told me that he had come West for the purpose of killing three men—Peter, Jared, and Matt Holmes. At that time Peter’s mine was the talk of Colorado. There had been a rich discovery, and the mine was worth millions.
“Well, I reflected, and soon the plot was born. Tom Darke killed Peter and Jared, and he would have killed Matt if I had not taken the job off his hands. I had to, for I was afraid that Darke’s gun would miss fire and that Matt would get him.
“The letter that brought my Cousin Myra to New Mexico was written by me. I had ingratiated myself with my Uncle Matt, and I knew he had made a will, leaving his estate to me and Myra. His estate then did not amount to much, but the estate of Peter did, and when Peter and Jared died, Matt became the owner of the mine. Before Myra arrived, Peter and Jared had crossed the divide.
“I could have come forward and claimed half theestate when my three uncles were dead, but I was afraid that I would be arrested. Although I had covered my tracks pretty well, I dared not face the authorities. Therefore, my scheme at the last was to marry Myra, compel her to give me the larger part of her share, and then light out for foreign parts.
“I believe she was on the point of trusting me, when you, Mr. Cody, was trapped in the cave. But I found when we got outside the hole that I had caught a Tartar.”
His voice became so weak that it could scarcely be heard. More whisky was administered.
“There is not much more for me to say,” the dying villain proceeded. “I stole Crow-killer’s pony and trailed you and your friends, Mr. Cody, to the Indian valley. I guessed your object. You were on your way to rescue my cousin from the hands of the Navahos. I determined to block that game if I could. I sneaked into the village ahead of you, and just after dark got to Myra’s tepee, and was lucky enough to find that no one was with her. I was once a druggist, and I have always carried on my person a powerful and peculiarly acting drug that was sent to me from the East Indies. This drug will produce a sleep that resembles death. I had come to the tepee prepared to work a bold design, and before I crawled away the drug was in the hands of Myra, and she knew what to do.”
“How did you deceive her,” asked Buffalo Bill.
“I used your name. A note accompanied the vial that contained the drug. The note was signed with your name, and informed her that you were near by, and that her rescue was certain if she would comply with your wish. She must swallow the contents of thevial. A deep sleep would come, the Indians would look upon her as dead, vigilance would be relaxed, and she could be carried away before daybreak. I did not, of course, enter the tepee, but thrust my hand under the wall of skins and made a slight noise to attract her attention.
“The scheme worked better than I had planned. The rescue was made with you, Mr. Cody, as my ally. The fight in the tepee was right to my hand. Before it was over I was on my pony, with Myra in my arms.
“If I used her roughly after she came to her senses, it was because I was half insane with fear. You were in pursuit, I knew it, and I knew, also, that I was doomed unless I got safely out of the mountains.”
“Did Miss Wilton see me before you left the pony to run to the peak?” asked Buffalo Bill. “She acted as if she did.”
“No, she did not see you, but she made me believe she did. Then I must have gone wholly insane. I determined to kill her and then kill myself.”
The tale was told. In a few minutes Rixton Holmes was dead.
Not many weeks later Myra Wilton and Carl Henson were married in Denver. Wild Bill Hickok left his partner to engage in a hunting expedition on the Continental Divide. Buffalo Bill, however, had much else to attend to. He had scarcely finished his work in the Holmes murder mystery before he had received a telegram from Colonel Hayden, an army officer, requesting the aid of the king of scouts in locating his beautiful daughter, who had been kidnaped by a notorious bandit.