CHAPTER XXI.

TIM BENSON’S ESCAPE.

There was no more astonished man in the town than Matt Shepard when he learned what had happened, and that the Fool of Folly Mountain was none other than the famous Wild Bill. The whole of the population of Blossom Range were equally amazed.

“It’s even a better trick than Juniper Joe played when he pretended to marry Benson and fooled the whole kit and b’ilin’ of us,” the sheriff declared.

But Buffalo Bill was not satisfied; Tim Benson had got away, and he wanted Benson.

Juniper Joe was back in jail, in charge of Shepard; and with him were Gopher Gabe and White-eyed Moses. Now that he was trapped and caught, fearing the worst, White-eyed Moses had “peached” on the whole gang, so that others were soon brought to the jail; and there was an exodus of scared people from the town.

Knowing that Tim Benson had on more than one occasion sought refuge with the Utes, Buffalo Bill took with him his pards and Shepard, and went out there.

Old Iron Bow, the chief, was not pleased with their intrusion into the village.

When Buffalo Bill demanded the surrender of the white man, Iron Bow told him no white man was there.

“You will let us look for him?” said the scout.

Iron Bow declared that the thing would be an outrage, but if the white wanted to look they could do so.

As well as they could, Buffalo Bill and his companions searched through the Ute village; but they did not find Benson.

“I suppose he suspected we would come here the first thing, and so kept away,” was the scout’s conjecture.

“Trust Benson for a long head,” said Shepard. “He’s the slipperiest rascal in the West.”

It had been said of Tim Benson more than once.

Iron Bow’s warriors became ugly and truculent before the white men left the village, so that it seemed a longer stay might have brought about a collision.

“Oh, they needn’t howl so,” said the sheriff, when the village was left behind; “everybody knows that they hide all sorts of jailbirds, if only the said jailbirds can bring along a good supply of whisky and blankets, and amm’nition, an’ the like o’ that. Some o’ these times I’m goin’ to get a line on that work, and lug old Iron Bow down to jail fer it.”

“Waugh!” whooped Nomad. “You’ll stir up an Injun uprisin’, ef ye do.”

“Vot iss makin’ me mad as hornedts,” declared the baron, “iss dot I ditn’t shoodt Penson vhen he smashed der lamp. Dot vos incriminal carelessness, vor I had a beadt on him.”

“If ye had, baron, you would be now deprivin’ yerself o’ much-needed excitement,” Nomad told him. “You couldn’t be huntin’ fer him right now, ef he war dead, could ye?”

“And you couldn’t be runnin’ the pleasant resk of him slammin’ a bullet into ye as you go along hyer,” added Shepard.

“Dot iss so,” the baron admitted. “I am t’inkin’, too, dot pefore ve gidt him ve vill pe having so mooch excidemendt as neffer vos.”

Between the town and the Indian village was a hill, which had some good hiding places in and around it.

This they searched, on their way back; though really they had begun to feel that perhaps Benson had hurriedly left the country.

Benson was in hiding on this hill, and he had seen them coming.

He was armed, and in a desperate frame of mind.

“So, they think they’ll surround me, and get me!” he snarled, when he saw Wild Bill and Shepard go in one direction, and the scout, with the others, in another direction. “There will be dead men here, if they crowd me.”

He got into a position where he could see the approach of Buffalo Bill and those with him, for he feared the scout most of all.

They passed beneath him, in a troughlike depression. He saw them enter the “dip,” and was seized with the thought that he might slay them all, when they gained a certain point.

Close by him was a great bowlder. He was familiar with it, and knew that it might be set in motion down the hill if a lever were set under its edge. He found a stick that would do for the lever, which he put in position; then he waited.

He could not see them now, but he could hear them. When he judged the right moment had come he threw his weight and strength on the lever, and started the stone.

He started more than that--he started a landslip!

The crash of the bounding bowlder, and the roar of the landslip which it had started, warned the scout and his pards of their peril.

Yet it seemed that the discovery of their danger came hardly in time.

“Run for your lives!” the scout yelled.

But as they ran for their lives the Dutch pard went down before the terrible landslip.

Fortunately, Baron von Schnitzenhauser was an exceedingly quick-witted man in times of danger; otherwise, it is probable he would not have lived so long.

He scrambled for a hole that had a covering of rock, in the shape of a shelf, and hurled himself under it just in time.

With a booming roar the bowlder passed over him; then the loosened soil and rocks followed it, with a noise that was deafening.

The baron was buried, apparently; but he still could breathe; for the shelf of rock held the weight of the débris from even touching him.

Buffalo Bill and Nomad turned back. The landslip had passed, but a cloud of dust hovered. Out of it floated those yells of the baron.

“Waugh! He’s livin’, anyhow,” said Nomad.

The yells of the baron also brought Wild Bill and Matt Shepard; they had started when they heard the landslip.

It took two hours to dig the baron out; but he issued forth without a scratch on him.

“A fool for luck,” said Shepard, when the baron had been unearthed.

“Uff you mean der Fool uff der Folly Moundain, idt iss so,” admitted the baron, feeling gingerly of himself, to make sure he was uninjured. “It iss no luckiness for me dot I am scar’dt into sixdeen fidts alreadty, iss idt?”

“Another lucky boy,” remarked Wild Bill, “is Tim Benson. He started that landslip, and I saw him running. But he was too far off for me to shoot at him; and by this time he must be miles from here.”

“Whether he is so very lucky or not will be told by and by,” said Buffalo Bill. “I still intend to get him.”