CHAPTER LII.

BUFFALO BILL’S DARING.

In front of the cabin which he knew to be Ricardo’s, and where the sentinel had said Rose Carter was held a prisoner, another sentinel paced slowly up and down, with military tread, bearing a rifle on his shoulder.

He seemed to be more alert than the sentinel whom Buffalo Bill had captured.

“Not a good outlook,” thought the scout, as he lay at one side of the gorge trail and made this discovery. “But I’ve attempted more difficult things.”

So, undaunted, he crawled on. The gorge ended a hundred yards or so from the nearest cabin, leaving the way absolutely open before him.

The camp of the outlaws had been well chosen. Apparently the only approach was through that narrow gorge, which a dozen men could have held easily against a regiment. The cabins occupied a bowllike area, that was level and of considerable extent. Behind the cabins some horses were grazing. All around tall mountain cliffs shut in the place.

“There’s a way out of here--some sort of backdoor passage, is my guess; Ricardo is too shrewd a rascal to coop himself in a spot that has only one exit. It seems he ought to be safe enough here. But if I had a dozen good fighting men at my back right now I’d guarantee to take the whole camp. If Ricardo was as smart as he appears to be he would have more sentries on duty, and would have every one of them reliable men. But the fox gets into the habit of sleeping, when he thinks the hounds are far away, and can’t by any possibility reach him.”

The scout was crawling on. At the end of the gorge he crept along the right wall of the cliff, for the shadows were blackest there. But when he had reached a point opposite Ricardo’s cabin he saw how difficult it would be to pass across that open space without discovery.

Just then, as if to thwart and discomfit him, some men came out of the cabin and stood talking with the sentinel.

One of them, the scout was sure, was Ricardo himself.

More than once as Buffalo Bill lay there listening and watching and trying vainly to make out what was being said, he lifted his ready revolver and pointed it at the indistinctly seen form of the outlaw chief.

But caution restrained him. The camp was full of outlaws. He could see numbers of them in the other cabins, and still others were moving about outside of the cabins, for the hour was so early that none of them had retired for the night.

“I can shoot Ricardo all right,” was the scout’s thought, “but what good would it do? It would simply stir up the rest of them; and though I might down half a dozen or so, they would either capture me or make it even more difficult than it might be to get that girl out of her prison.”

So each time the deadly revolver came down. By and by Ricardo and those with him went back into the cabin. But the sentinel continued to pace his beat, and but a call from his lips would have been sufficient to bring the outlaws out of the house and rally them from the other cabins.

“The moon will be up soon,” thought the scout, glancing at the eastern sky, which was already beginning to redden. “I shall have to try some other plan.”

Then a great thought, daring as he was himself, came into his mind. Retracing his way by crawling along the cliff wall, he reëntered the side gorge.

Here he arose to his feet, and made his way into the gulch, down which he hurried at a rapid pace. He did not halt until he came near the spot where he had left Midnight.

Midnight was too well trained to even whinny when his master drew near, but when Buffalo Bill came up to the intelligent animal it showed every sign of delight at his return.

“I just want a couple of blankets, Midnight,” he said.

Then he took the blankets from the roll behind the saddle, after which he patted the horse lovingly, and hurried away.

Going up the gulch again, he entered the side cañon and went on to the point where he had left the sentinel. He hurried as he walked, for the time was precious.

He found the fellow writhing and twisting at his bonds, in a vain hope to extricate himself from his unpleasant position.

“Ho, my man, I’m back sooner than you expected me!” he said, as he once more bent over the rascal. “Well, I’ve come to make a trade with you.”

Again he showed his revolver, then took the gag from the man’s mouth.

“What d’yer want?” the fellow growled, in a slow way, for his mouth was sore and stiff.

“Your clothing. I’m going to take these cords off of you--every one of them, so that you can strip. I want you to slide out of this suit as quick as you can.”

The man was puzzled. He began to hope, though, that a chance of escape would now be given him. When Buffalo Bill had removed the cords he covered the man with his revolver.

“Now, my friend,” he said quietly and sternly, “you’ll do a lightning shift out of those garments, or I’ll feel compelled to pump some lead into you. What I want with those clothes is none of your business; it’s enough for you to know that I want them.”

Fear of that deadly revolver caused the man to begin to strip without questioning.

“Now, you may have this blanket, in place of the clothes. It will keep you warm all right, in this summer weather, and keep the mosquitoes off of you, perhaps, if they are many up here.”

Having said this, he retied the rascal and once more gagged him completely; though the man did a good deal of grumbling, and was only kept quiet by fear of instant death.

Buffalo Bill now arrayed himself in the garments of the sentinel, even to the hat and found, fortunately, that, though he was a large man, the sentinel was about as large, and the clothing fitted fairly well.

“Not a bad-looking double of this fellow, if I keep my face concealed,” was the scout’s thought.

Then he left the sentinel, and left his own clothing in a niche in the rock, and, carrying the one blanket that remained, went back into the gulch trail and on toward the camp of Ricardo.

He did not stop until he was in the gorge and once more opposite the cabins of the outlaws. The moon was rising, and its light began to illuminate the little valley holding the outlaw camp.

Within the shadow of the gorge Buffalo Bill halted, to take a full survey of all that lay before him. Not so many outlaws were to be seen. Most of them were probably eating their evening meal. But within the cabin of Ricardo, at which the scout looked longest, several men were visible through the window that looked outward toward the gorge.

Then Buffalo Bill began to work out one of the most daring plans of his daring career. Stepping boldly out of the gorge and trusting to the outlaw’s clothing to deceive the sentinel, he walked slowly toward the cabin.

The sentinel saw him coming--could not help seeing him--and looked at him intently. But the scout had his rough hat pulled well down over his face, almost concealing it, and the suspicions of the sentinel were not yet aroused.

When Buffalo Bill drew near the cabin door something in his gait appeared to excite the suspicion of the guard.

“Why--that you, Ned? What in thunder ye comin’----”

He was not given time to say more, nor to lift his rifle, which he had dropped to the hollow of his arm.

With a leap as light as that of a panther Buffalo Bill was at his side, and the heavy blanket was over the sentinel’s head. At the same instant the scout drove his heavy fist into the sentinel’s face with such force that he was knocked insensible.

Fortunately the muffling blanket kept the heavy blow from being heard in the cabin, but, unfortunately, as the sentinel fell, he swung backward and struck his arm against the door, making a sound somewhat like the thump of a heavy fist of a rough man who imperatively demands entrance.

The door against which the sentinel had struck his arm--there were two doors on that side of the cabin, showing that it was divided into two rooms--was swung almost instantly open, and a man stood before scout.

Behind him was another man, and behind this man the form of a girl--the girl being, as Buffalo Bill guessed, Rose Carter.

The sentinel lay limp in Buffalo Bill’s arms, his face upturned, for the scout had jerked away the hooded blanket.

“What’s up?” the man asked, in a curious voice.

Without hesitation, Buffalo Bill answered:

“Things wasn’t lookin’ jest as they ought to outside, an’ I come up ter report, and this feller was layin’ right by the door--keeled over in a fit, I reckon, an’ when----”

Having talked with the first sentinel he had made a prisoner, Buffalo Bill was imitating the peculiarities of the man’s speech, and so clever was the imitation that the man in the doorway was for a moment deceived.

That moment was enough for Buffalo Bill’s purpose. He stepped forward with his burden, as if for the purpose of bearing it into the room.

“Not in heur,” the man objected. “Take it into t’other room, whar ther capt’in is.”

He was not given time to say anything more, for Buffalo Bill’s strong right hand shot out at this juncture and caught him by the throat in an iron grip.

As he pushed this man on into the room, holding him by the throat, the scout let the insensible form of the guard slip to the ground.

The man he had taken by the throat was not willing to be subdued without a struggle, however, and began to writhe and twist and fight with all his strength.

There was a stir in the other room, which, as the scout now saw, was connected by a door with this room.

With a quick glance around, Buffalo Bill saw that the other occupants of the room were Carter and his daughter Rose.

Fortunately, Carter, who had been held in another cabin, as the first sentinel had reported, had been brought to this cabin not long before, to be questioned by Ricardo, and was in the room with Rose when Buffalo Bill made his unexpected and spectacular appearance.

On a table at one side of the room was a kerosene lamp, whose light illumined the place.

Rose and her father were thrown into a state of much excitement by the fighting of the two men, one of whom they knew was an outlaw, whom they had no cause to love, and the identity of the other they could not even conjecture. Not for an instant did they think that he was the great scout, Buffalo Bill.

Seeing the connecting door fly open, and hearing behind it the tread and the exclamations of a number of men, Buffalo Bill caught up the kerosene lamp, which was of glass, and hurled it straight at the head of the man who had first appeared, and whom he recognized to be Ricardo himself.

The lamp struck the outlaw chief fairly and knocked him down; then, passing on into the other room through the now open door, it fell to the floor, exploding as it fell and scattering fire and burning oil in every direction.

It was as if pandemonium had been instantly let loose, for the burning oil, striking the clothing of the men, set them on fire, and enveloped them in flames, and the oil on the floor also catching fire, shot up in red flames to the low ceiling.

“Quick!” said the scout.

The door to the outside was open before him, and beyond that door was the gorge and the gulch, the prairie and liberty.

He caught Rose Carter with one hand and her father with the other, and, before they could question or object, he had pulled them through the doorway to the outside.

“Now, run!” he said. “Run for the gorge. I am Buffalo Bill, and I have come here to rescue you. Run, and I will protect with my life if it is needed.”

Men were pouring out of the other cabins, for the explosion of the lamp, the leaping flames, and the howls of the men who were burned and blinded, was rousing the whole camp.

Buffalo Bill’s fighting blood was up, and, as he fell in behind the running figures of Rose Carter and her father, he was in a mood to fight the whole outlaw camp rather than let the escaping prisoners be retaken.

He heard low, hoarse commands, excited yells as some of the men in the burning cabin leaped through the doorways, their garments blazing, and also saw several men running toward the horses that were feeding in the valley behind the camp.

With his face toward the camp and a revolver ready in each hand, Buffalo Bill retreated toward the gorge. Some men, seeing him, and recognizing him as an enemy in spite of the disguising clothing, the revolvers of the scout began to rattle.

Two of the men dropped dead in their tracks, and another was severely wounded, and this caused the others to draw back.

Then there were louder yells and sharper commands, as Ricardo appeared and began to shout orders.

The outlaw chief had been knocked down by the lamp and for a few moments was in no condition for fight; but he had rallied, and as none of the burning fluid had touched him, he was now out in the open air, shrieking his wild commands.

Buffalo Bill took a shot at the outlaw chief; but another outlaw, who chanced to rush in front of the leader, got the bullet and fell.

Then the scout was himself in the mouth of the gorge, with the prisoners running on at full speed toward the gulch trail.

Buffalo Bill turned now and ran after them at his best gait, and soon overtook them.

“Run as you never ran before!” he commanded.

Taking each by the hand, he seemed to fairly lift them forward, as he sped in wild flight toward the point where he had left his horse.

Behind them rose a terrible din in the outlaw camp, and a little later a red light shot up toward the sky, showing that the cabin they had so lately left was in flames.

“They will be after us on horses in a minute or two,” said the scout, urging the fugitives on.

Near the point where the little side cañon opened which held the bound and gagged sentinel, Buffalo Bill halted for a moment, just long enough to lift Rose Carter in his strong arms, then he tore on again, leading the way, with Carter racing heavily behind him.

Fortunately, the camp was in such wild confusion that the scout and the fugitives were able to reach the spot where Midnight had been left before they were sighted by any of their pursuers.

“Down, now!” the scout whispered.

Behind them he heard the thunder of hoofs. And as the three--the scout and the fugitives--stooped to the ground, down the gulch came the horsemen riding now out into the increasing moonlight.

A dozen men on horseback swept by, riding like the wind and heading for the open prairie, to which point they naturally believed the fugitives had hurried. The scout chuckled audibly as the last horseman thundered by.

“Let them go,” he said, “they will find it a wild-goose chase.”

Other horsemen were heard, and they also thundered by. Back in the little valley the flames of the burning cabin mounted higher and higher until the sky was brilliantly lighted.

For an hour Buffalo Bill and his friends lay in hiding, with Midnight; and in that time the scout learned all that the prisoners had to tell of their capture, the burning of their home, the murderous deeds and the subsequent cruelty of the outlaws.

It was a harrowing story.

“Such debts can only be paid when those devils are wiped off the face of the earth.”

“Hark!” said Rose. “Some one is coming, I believe.”

“Yes; one of those outlaws is coming back,” said the scout. “I heard the hoofs of his horse some time ago.”

He took his lariat as he said it, and stationed himself out by the side of the trail along which the outlaw rider would have to pass.

A little later he came into view, riding slowly. He was swearing volubly. The trail of the fugitives had not been struck, and because of that and of the things which had preceded he was in an ugly temper.

His words and oaths were cut short when the lasso of the scout shot out from the side of the trail, and, settling about his neck, jerked him heavily to the ground.

In an instant the scout was on him, stifling his cries.

“I’ve just been waiting for one of you fellows to come back,” he said, “for I wanted a horse. Now I have one. You will find the sentinel, tied up and gagged, in the side cañon. You’d better see that he is released. And, to make sure that you know just where he is, I will go with you.”

Then, with his revolver keeping the man silent by its threatening, he walked with his prisoner up the gulch and into the little cañon.

When Buffalo Bill again appeared he was dressed in his own clothing.

“Any more of those fellows coming back?” he asked of Carter.

“No; that is, we haven’t heard anything.”

“Then we’ll be going. Some of them will no doubt be along soon. We can strike the prairie, and I know some gulches and some washes we can get into and which we can follow. It will baffle them to find us now.”

“Now?” questioned Rose.

“Yes. We have two horses now. Midnight, my horse, will carry double, and we now have an extra horse for your father. You can be shifted from one horse to the other, as the animals tire. But come, we must be going, for we must be far from here before daylight. The moonlight is increasing, but they can’t do much trailing before day comes.”

Then he helped Rose Carter to a seat on Midnight, and swung up himself behind her, and, Rose’s father being seated in the saddle vacated so recently by one of the outlaws, the journey was begun.