CHAPTER XXIV.

BUFFALO BILL HEARS THE TRUTH.

Buffalo Bill knew the worst. He and his friends were condemned to death. They were crouched together in the little prison, whose shining bars and heavy door were too much for their combined strength. Wild Bill and Nomad were there, as well as the baron and the scout.

The Piute and his Apaches, out scouting when the attack of the Red Feathers was made on Wild Bill and Nomad, had escaped, perhaps by running, and where they were now, or whether living or dead, could not be told.

Though knowing now the worst, Buffalo Bill and his friends were not cast down. Peril only seemed to quicken the spirits of Wild Bill. While as for old Nomad, he did not fear Indians, nor did he fear death.

Nor was the baron as much alarmed as one might have expected.

About the middle of the afternoon Buffalo Bill was taken from the prison and conducted to a room in the dome-shaped building which has already been mentioned. From its general appearance Buffalo Bill had already decided that it was a temple, perhaps of sun worshipers, and this seemed to be borne out by the fact that over the wide portal through which he was taken was a large, rayed image of the sun, in gold, resembling the gold piece he had found in the trail.

He had learned from the baron that the apparent gold seen everywhere so plentifully was not all what it seemed—was badly debased with a big percentage of copper, but this representation of the sun, like the smaller one he had found, seemed to him to be pure gold, and no doubt it was.

When conducted into the room that was at one side of the main entrance he found that it resembled a small sanctuary, and this was further borne out by the robed figure that stood at its farther end, close by a fire which burned red on a brazier of gold.

The robed figure had been feeding the fire, and an aromatic smell arose, showing that herbs had been burning.

The thing that astonished Buffalo Bill was that in a glittering seat close by the robed figure sat Toltec Tom. And when the robed figure turned to face the scout on his entrance he beheld the face of a woman of fifty years or more—a white woman surely—whose years had not yet been able to obliterate the undoubted beauty of her youth.

Her robes were of white skin. The scout judged them to be dressed deerskins, tanned to a snowy whiteness.

Her arms were bare, and on them were loops of gold whose flattened sides showed the sun image. In her ears were earrings—pendants—also showing that representation of the sun, and the front of the shining brazier showed the same.

With his Indian guards crowding in behind him, Buffalo Bill halted when he beheld Tom Conover and the woman. He looked accusingly at Conover, and saw the red flush deepen in Conover’s face and crimson in the scar on his forehead.

The woman looked up from the fire and beckoned to the scout, pushing out a footstool in front of her, indicating that he was to sit on it.

The doorway closed, but the Indian guards were on the inside, and they held their lances in readiness.

“This seems queer to you, Cody!” said Conover, trying vainly to smile. “But you’ll understand it better, maybe, and then you’ll not think so hard of me, perhaps.”

The woman paid no heed to this, but kept her dark eyes fixed on the face of the scout as he came slowly forward and took the stool.

Then she sat down, leaning back into the arms of a chair that was graced with a panther skin.

“There are some things that it is unpleasant to try to understand,” was Buffalo Bill’s comment, in response to the words of Conover.

The light of the fire reddened the white robes of the woman and gave a ruddy tinge to the cheek she turned toward it. She sat looking earnestly at the scout for a moment without speaking, and when she spoke her words were clipped and broken, showing that she had difficulty in using the language.

“It is very hard for me to say the Ainglish,” she declared, “and I know not hardly why it should be said, for all is fixed that you and your friends go not out of this place, but it is for him to please,” she nodded to Conover, “and he will tell you more things than what it is in my power to tell.”

Conover half lifted himself with a sudden, eager impatience, then dropped back.

“It’s this way, Cody,” he said: “she can’t handle the language like we can, for, though she knew it when she was a child, and I’ve taken the trouble to teach her what I could, it doesn’t come natural to her. I asked her to have you come here, that I could explain; for I don’t want you to think too hard about what has happened.”

When the scout did not answer, Conover went on hurriedly:

“It all goes back to a good many years ago, when I was captured by these Indians, and would have been killed, if she had not saved my life. I paid her for that, later, by marrying her. I couldn’t get away, and by and by I didn’t want to; I only wanted to stay with her. As I shan’t be able to make you understand that part of it, Cody, I’ll not try to; only I’ll say this, there came a time when I would have died for this woman, and that time ain’t past yet.

“But we had quarrels, in spite of the fact that I loved her better than any other woman I’d ever seen, and then, too, I got jealous of the chief here, old Fire Top. We had a regular duel about her, me and him, on horseback, with lances, and that’s how I got this beauty mark.”

He tapped the scar significantly.

“The fight happened out in the hills beyond the town, and he left me here for dead. When I came to myself, I was a bit hazy mentally, and I cut out, without trying to get back. I feared, too, that old Fire Top would kill me, after what had happened. And she had turned against me. So I fled.

“That was a good while ago. I shan’t go into all the details—it ain’t necessary. But I hit out for the white man’s country, and though I knew there was gold here aplenty, I never cared to come back to try to get any of it, for what is gold if you have to pay your life for it.

“I roamed round after that, here, there, and everywhere, and done all sorts of work, and the years slipped past. I kept my own counsel. I still loved this woman, and I knew if I spread round a report of the gold in here adventurers would crowd in, and maybe the Toltecs here would be annihilated and the woman killed, and I didn’t want that to happen. I had come to like a good many of these reds, and, as I said, I loved the woman, though I wasn’t sure that I’d ever see her again.

“A month or so ago I met one of the Red Feathers near the town of Cochise—you know where that is—and he told me the woman was dead. He lied to me, as I know now, because he was afraid I’d try to come back, and he didn’t want it. But I took his word for it.

“That knocked me out—I went all to pieces; and in Cochise, and in Skyline, I simply went on a spree that came nigh being my last. You know about that.

“And you know how I chanced to set out with you for this place. When you asked me what I knew about these Toltecs, and put it up to me, it came to me that here was a chance to do a bit of good, in return for all the wrong I’ve done, and also to find out about how the woman had died, and all that, maybe. I still thought she was sure dead. And—I didn’t want any more of that child-stealing business to go on. I’ll tell you soon about that—all about it.

“I didn’t intend to desert you—I meant to play true blue, and when it happened I felt that it wasn’t really desertion. She came to me in the camp, when all were asleep, and woke me up, and I thought it was her spirit, or that I was dreaming, and I got up when she motioned to me and walked out on the blanket she put down, and then I got on the horse she had and come here with her.

“If I was to die this minute, Cody, I couldn’t help doing that!” He looked appealingly at the scout. “I couldn’t help it, and maybe I didn’t want to help it, and I ain’t even sorry now, for, you see, I have got her again, and she isn’t dead.”

He put his hand to his throat as if a lump choked him there. But the woman sat impassive, without moving her face, on which the red light of the fire flickered. To all seeming, she did not hear or understand a word Conover was saying. Yet her bright, dark eyes were fixed on the scout, as if she sought to read the emotions displayed in his countenance.

“I think I can understand your feelings somewhat,” said the scout to Conover.

“Thanks for that,” said Conover, his face brightening; “I was afraid you couldn’t.”

“The Morgan boy is here—still here?” the scout asked.

“I’m coming to that,” said Conover. “As you’ve heard, every twenty or thirty years a white child is stolen by these Toltecs, or, rather, by their priest. This woman was stolen that way, when she was a child. She was brought up here, and became the priestess of these Toltec sun worshipers; that’s what she was stole for.

“They’ve got some kind of legend, or teaching, which directs that their priest must be white, or nearly white. I suppose before there were any white people in the country they took a very white Indian. It teaches, too, that one priest must be a boy, and the next a girl, and so on, and that they must be stolen from some place by the priest.

“It’s supposed that the Great Spirit picks out the child that is to be taken. So when the priest or priestess thinks his or her death isn’t far off, it becomes a duty for him or her to go out and find the child that is pointed out by the Great Spirit.”

His voice choked again.

“She—Itzlan—that’s her Indian name”—he nodded to the woman—“thought her time was near, and, believing with the Indians, she set out to find the child, a boy this time, and she got this child of Morgan’s, and set out to bring him here.

“She will teach him how to be a priest of the Toltecs, and so well that he will want to be that, and never will go back to his people; that’s the way it always is; she wouldn’t go back to the white people; she is a Toltec through and through, believing everything they do. And it will be that way by and by with this Morgan kid—he will be in time the white priest of these Toltecs.

“She thought I was dead. But when she had left the child in the hills by the trail and slipped back to see if she had been followed, and then saw me, with you, she felt that she couldn’t go on again, unless I went with her. That’s what she has told me. And so she planned to get me out of the camp, and I’ve told you how she did it.

“And,” he licked his dry lips nervously, “that’s how it happened; and I reckon that’s about all.”

“The child is to be kept here?” said Buffalo Bill.

“Yes, and be trained up for the high priest of the Toltecs; Itzlan there will see to that. It’s laid on her as a part of her religion to do that, and she’ll do it. The Toltecs felt grieved when she came back with the child, for it was the first they had heard that she didn’t think she would live long. But she says now, has said to me, that since I’ve come back she doesn’t feel that way. It’s queer, ain’t it?”

He stared nervously at Buffalo Bill.

“So I want you to understand it, so you’ll know how it was, and won’t think too hard about me. That Niobrara matter was bad, and likely you’ll think this one worse.”

In spite of all, Buffalo Bill felt sorry for Conover; he could read the mental suffering in his face, which Conover had endured, and he understood the strength of the temptation to which the man had been subjected.

“I suppose we are not to be released?” said the scout.

“She says not,” Conover answered, turning his gaze away. “I’ve tried to get her to change that, but I can’t; it’s one thing she is set on.”

He turned again to the scout.

“This is the way she looks at it, and the way old Fire Top looks at it. He’s the chief, and the head of the warriors, and in his way he has more power here than she has. She’s the religious leader, you see.

“Well, she and Fire Top believe that the only way to keep white men from coming here and driving out the Toltecs is for the Toltecs to kill all that do come, and so make others afraid to come. She says the white men love gold so that if they knew what was here they could not be kept back, so many of them would come. But the white people won’t trouble the place so long as they don’t know about the gold, and are made afraid to come nigh it. I suppose she’s right about that.”

His face was troubled.

“I’d do something if I could, Cody, and that’s a fact, though you may not believe it. I’m afraid I can’t do anything. I feel sorry about it, and feel a bit responsible, as I set out as your guide to this spot. I ought to have known better. But I meant well. Only I didn’t know Itzlan was living, you see!”

“I understand,” said the scout. “We are to be killed, at the order of this woman, so that knowledge of this place may not get to the world outside. But you may tell her, for me, that she is making a mistake in that, for if I and my friends do not return from this spot the United States government will surely send here a force strong enough to annihilate this whole tribe of Toltecs. I wish you’d make that plain to her, Conover, if she doesn’t thoroughly understand my words now.”

The woman’s face was still impassive.

Nor did it change in its expression even when Tom Conover began to translate to her in the Toltec language the threatening statement which Buffalo Bill had made.

The scout could see that the woman did not intend to relent.