CHAPTER XXIII.

BUFFALO BILL’S HOLD-UP.

Matt Shepard bounced quickly into the room occupied by Wild Bill Hickok, at the Eagle House.

“Excuse me!” he said. “But if what I hear is so, Tim Benson has got out o’ the town!”

Wild Bill, who had been sitting comfortably by the window, came to his feet with a jump.

“Do you reckon it’s so?” he asked.

“They say he took the stage; that _he_ was the man that was seen to git on. It was only after the stage had pulled out, that Barney, the stableboy, decided that the one man who went as a passenger was Benson. Barney has got keen eyes, and I’m bettin’ his guess is the truth. If so, Benson fooled me complete.”

Matt Shepard turned back to the door when he had delivered this.

“I thought I’d tell you,” he said. “I’m goin’ to git some men together and shack right out after that stage. Benson has fooled me so many times----”

“And may be fooling you now,” the man from Laramie reminded.

“You mean this guess of Barney’s may be wrong?”

“It’s just what I mean. Who else went in the stage?”

“Vera Bright.”

“Wow!”

“But I’m guaranteein’ that she didn’t know that the man who climbed into the hearse with her was Benson.”

“Where is Miss Bright going?”

“On her way to ’Frisco, I heard. She’s had enough of the game here. She told me only yisterday that she believed Benson had got out of the country, and she was goin’ this morning.”

“It’s a queer thing, if they’re there together.”

“But just like Benson. Nobody can ever tell what he’ll do. He’s sharper than tacks and slipperier than eels. But that stage is humpin’ right along--Elmore is driving, and he makes things hum when he’s on the box.”

“Yes, that’s so.”

Wild Bill came out of his room, following the sheriff, and locked the door behind him.

“What you goin’ to do?” Shepard asked.

“I’m going to get word of this to Buffalo Bill as fast as I can.”

“Where is he?”

“Out on that very trail, and looking for Benson.”

“You follow the stage, as soon as you can get your men together! I’ll shack out alone.”

Wild Bill went down the stairway to the lower floor three steps at a jump; then ran out to the stable, at the rear of the hotel, where he kept his riding horse.

Before the slower-moving sheriff was well out in the street, Wild Bill had his horse ready, and was in the saddle.

He struck at once into the Calumet Wells stage trail, galloping out of the town; but he did not stick to it long. The appearance of the dust in the trail told him that the stage had passed that way not long before.

“I’ll want to pass round the stage without Benson knowing it, if the scoundrel is in it,” was his thought, “and so get word to Cody. It will take some hot riding to do it, but I’ve got an animal here that can go. Shepard is a slow mover; so he won’t get this far out within an hour, if then; for he will want to get a lot of men together, with horses, and that will take time. The stage will be at Stag Mountain long enough before the sheriff can get anywhere near it. That would be just the place for Cody, if I can get the word to him in time.”

So Wild Bill swung out of the trail, turning off to the right, and rode at a swift gallop.

Occasionally, as he drove his horse on, he consulted his watch, and looked at the rising peak of Stag Mountain, estimating the probable time the stage would get to that point.

Having left the trail, he did not see the stage at all. But he came abreast of Stag Mountain in a remarkably short time, and swung on around it, keeping to the path he had chosen.

“If Cody suspects that Benson may try this trail, in an effort to get out of the town, I’ll find him near the other end of the cañon,” was his conclusion. “I’ll look for him there, at any rate.”

The man from Laramie, knowing of his pard’s plans, judged so accurately that, when he came again into the stage trail, just beyond the cañon, he saw first a rifle poked at him over the bushes, then the head of old Nomad appear.

“Waugh!” the trapper bellowed at him. “I war jest on ther p’int o’ pumpin’ lead at ye. Better swing back on them reins. Buffler’s in hyar.”

Buffalo Bill and the Baron rose out of the bushes and stepped into the trail, where Wild Bill had brought his panting horse to a halt.

“News!” said the man from Laramie.

“I cal’lated et, soon’s I seen ’twas you!” said Nomad.

“Tim Benson is coming in the stage, so I was told. Shepard gave me the word; and though it is just a guess, I straddled my animal and brought it to you.”

“And the stage is due here at almost any minute,” was Buffalo Bill’s comment.

“Yes, I reckon it is. I rode like the devil was after me, for I was bound to git here first. Shepard is to follow it with a posse; but it’ll take him half a day, likely, to turn round a few times and get under way.”

“Uff idt iss drue,” said the baron, “I gan see some bromise of a varm dimes goming. Dot Penson iss a fighdter.”

“Anybody with him?” the scout asked.

“Yes--and it’s a funny thing! Vera Bright is in the same stage.”

“Waugh!” Nomad whooped. “Thet actress woman. But she’s his inemy.”

“As I understand it, she didn’t know he was to go, and perhaps didn’t recognize him; he’s got a wonderful way of changing his appearance--never saw anything like it. The only thing I’m afraid of is that a mistake has been made, and he ain’t in the stage with her at all. She went; that’s sure. And a man went--a small man, about the size of Benson; one of the stableboys says he knows it _was_ Benson. Now you know all I do.”

“Budt ve vill haf to do some mofing kvick,” averred the baron. “You vill pe hearing dot stage in apowet fife minudes.”

“You’ll have to look out for Benson’s revolvers,” the man from Laramie warned. “He’s quick with the trigger, and he will shoot if cornered. We’ve got to get the drop on him.”

Buffalo Bill took charge of the situation, and led his friends at a run toward the cañon, which lay like a black gulf on the southern side of the low peak called Stag Mountain.

Through the cañon the trail ran, and because the cañon was dark, with bushes growing on each side, it had for many months been a favorite place for hold-ups. Benson had used it in that way a number of times himself.

Hardly had the scout and his friends got into position in the bushes in the cañon when the rumble of wheels announced the approach of the stage.

They soon afterward heard the snapping of Elmore’s long whip, and the voice of the driver. He was singing, to give himself and his passengers assurance. Elmore always got nervous when he came to that spot. Though he had been in a score of hold-ups and never injured, he expected that each would be his last. If there had been another way for the stage, he would have taken it. There was a bridle path, which Wild Bill had followed; but though it was wide enough for a horse, the stage could not get through it.

Elmore’s bellowing voice was wafted ahead of him into the dark-walled confines of the cañon:

“The red-headed man from Santy Fe, Held aces four, an’ then some more; He got my wealth away frum me, An’ I am sore--I’m mighty sore!”

The stage came in sight, lurching down into the cañon. Elmore swung his whip, making it crack like a pistol.

“G’lang!” they heard him yell. “Git through this hyar brimstone hole, fast as ye can. Whoop! Wow! Go on, there!”

Hank Elmore, thinking he was through, or nearly so, and safe, broke out in song again.

But suddenly his singing changed to a howl, his foot was jammed automatically against the heavy brake, and he pulled back on the lines.

“Whoa!” he yelled.

Out of the bushes on each side weapons had appeared, making him think that it was another road-agent hold-up; though in an instant he saw that the men were Wild Bill, Buffalo Bill, old Nomad, and Baron von Schnitzenhauser.

“What in the name o’ Sam Hill!” he yelled, in his amazement, as he recognized them. “Gents, this is----”

“Just keep your seat and steady your horse,” Buffalo Bill shot at him. “We won’t trouble _you_. The man we are after is in the stage.”

“Wow!” said Elmore. “Is that so? What’s _he_ been up to?”

“If we aren’t mistaken, you’re pulling Benson along in your old hearse to-day,” the scout told him.

Elmore came near falling out of his seat.

“Bub-Benson! But--say, it cain’t be. Bub-Benson ain’t----”

Buffalo Bill advanced on the stage, a revolver in each hand, paying no further heed to the stage driver.

“We think you’re in there, Benson!” he called out. “So you might as well step right out and surrender. We know you’re a big little man, and a mighty good pistol shot; but there are four of us here, and we can do some shooting, too. So, even if you downed one or two of us you couldn’t get away. And it would go mighty hard with you. Better come right out like a little man and surrender.”

But there was no reply to this.

“Hold your revolvers on the stage doors,” the scout commanded. “If Benson jumps out and tries to get away, down him. He has given us enough trouble.”

He stepped to the door of the stage on his side, and boldly drew it open with his left hand, holding a revolver in his right.

“You might as well come out, Benson. There is a woman in there. Miss Vera Bright; but, of course, she knows that we mean no harm to her. We’re after Tim Benson.”

There was a rustling sound; then a woman--or what they took, in the rather dim light, to be a woman--came out of the stage, carrying a hand bag.

“You--you sc-scared me so!”

“No harm will be done you, Miss Bright,” said the scout. “But there is a man in here; and we want him.”

The scout put his head in at the stage door, and saw a form lying back amid the cushions.

“Hello!” he said. “What is this!”

The next moment he had leaped into the stage, after calling on his friends to keep a close watch.

A woman lay unconscious against the cushions of the coach, the scout saw at once.

He stooped over her, the light not so good that he could see her face clearly; but a feeling that something was wrong came to him.

“Stop that woman outside!” he yelled.

He turned to get out of the stage.

At the same instant Nomad yelled something.

“Stop her!” Buffalo Bill shouted.

Nomad began to run after the supposed woman.

“She is hikin’, Cody,” he announced.

“Then shoot her! For that woman must be Tim Benson!”

The trapper’s revolver roared the next moment.

“Waugh!” he howled. “She’s gittin’ away, Buffler!”

The scout flung himself out of the stage.

All he saw at that first look was the skirts of the supposed man, as they whipped out of sight behind a rock, and Nomad lunging in that direction.

“I’m afraid we’re tricked,” said the scout to Wild Bill and the baron. “But you stay right here; some woman is in the stage, or else Benson. We will know directly.”

Then he sprinted after Nomad.

The disguised man was out of sight, amid the rocks that lined the cañon, by the time the scout and the trapper reached the spot where last they had seen him.

“Waugh!” Nomad roared, staring around. “Was et a man, er a woman? Anyway, ther critter hes kited.”

The scout ran on, looking about, hand on ready revolver, prepared to shoot, and expecting to be shot at. The rocky sides of the cañon were bush-grown, and there were little crevices and cracks making off from it on the right and left. These were dark, and made darker by the bushes. The outlaw had all the advantage. He could lie hidden; and when he felt safe, he could climb softly up the broken and ragged cañon wall, or sneak away along the rifts. Twenty men would hardly have been enough to make a prompt and thorough exploration of the many hiding places.

Buffalo Bill turned back, meeting Nomad, who had been following.

“Er clean giterway!” the trapper howled.

“It looks it, Nomad. But we’ll go back to the stage and see what we have there.”

Instead of answering, Nomad whirled as if on a pivot, swinging his revolver round, and sent a shot plunging and roaring into one of the side gorges. At the same time he followed the shot by rushing into the place.

“Did you see him?” Buffalo Bill called, following the trapper.

“I heared him--er her!”

But the sound did not come again.

What was heard next was a plunging of the stage horses, then the bounding and rattling of the stage, accompanied by a roar from Hank Elmore, commanding the horses to stop.

“I reckon ther hosses hez tuck et inter their heads ter make a break, too,” commented the trapper.

He and Buffalo Bill rushed into the gorge, searching for the author of the sound they had heard. But they unearthed nothing, and by and by came out.

“We might’s well give et up, Buffler,” the trapper admitted ruefully. He was in a fuming rage. “This is tough luck. Whoever thet was made a clean giterway. Looks like er trick o’ Benson’s.”

Hastening back to the spot where Wild Bill and the German had been left with the stage, they found the stage gone, and those who had been with it.

“This is a beastly mess!” Nomad whooped. “Even so big a thing as a stagecoach slips right through our fingers. But I reckon thet Wild Bill an’ ther baron aire chasin’ arter et.”

They followed, also, hurrying at a run along the trail.

When they came out of the cañon they saw the stage and horses a quarter of a mile away. The German and Wild Bill had apparently overtaken the stage, and then had turned back, for they were coming toward the cañon. The stage driver, after wrapping the lines round a tree by the trail, came also toward the cañon, hastening to overtake the man from Laramie.

“Might’s well wait fer ’em ter git hyer,” suggested Nomad. “I’m plum winded. But ef we war follerin’ Benson, ther kyote got away.”

“I believe it was Benson, in spite of the woman’s clothing. Circumstances suggest it.”

“And Wild Bill said thet et war him.”

When Wild Bill came near he swung his hat and whooped:

“Did he get away?” he demanded.

“Plum made ther through trip,” Nomad answered, his face an angry red.

“Was it a woman who was left in the stage?” the scout asked.

“It was Vera Bright.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“There’s no doubt whatever, pard. We brought her round, and she talked with us. She’s in the stage yet, but weak; we left her there and come hoppin’ back, judgin’ that you was needin’ help. She told us that Benson had taken her hand bag, got clothing and other things out of it, and made a change in his looks, while he was in the stage with her; and that she was too frightened to make an outcry. He said to her, too, that he was expecting you to appear, and that he would fool you, and get away.”

“Et’s what he has done, ther ornery skunk!” cried Nomad. “But et’s jest like Benson.”

“He iss like der flea,” put in the baron; “vhen you haf got him, you gan loogk vor him at some odder blaces alreadty.”

“He’s certain a mighty smart un,” commented the stage driver. “I was tur’ble oneasy as I driv up ter ther cañon, but I’d ’a’ been throwin’ fits ef I had guessed thet Benson was the little gent ridin’ in my hearse.”

“Benson knew that the town and the trails were watched and covered, so he had to make use of some scheme to get out at all; and, of course, he wanted to get out,” said the scout. “I wonder where he will go now?”

“Could we trail him?” asked the man from Laramie.

“That’s to be settled, after we try it.”

“Then you mean to try it?”

“I certainly shall do everything to keep him from getting out of the country. After he leaves this rocky section and puts his foot on softer ground he has got to make a trail, and I see no reason why we can’t find it and follow him. It will take time; but if no rain comes to wash out his tracks, we can do it.”

“No rain in sight now,” said Nomad. “Et don’t rain down in this kentry enough ter make a man reckle’t what a good rain seems like.”

A sound came from the direction of the horses, that the stage driver had tied to the tree.

“Wow!” he howled. “They’ve broke that hitchin’ strap, and thar they go, cuss ’em!”

The horses had broken away from the tree, and were going down the trail at a tearing gait, dragging the stagecoach, which swayed and bounced on the rough places, as if it would go over.

The excited stage driver started after them on foot, as if he thought he could overtake them in that way.

“No use to run your lungs out in that style, Elmore,” the man from Laramie called out to him. “Our horses are right here. You can straddle the back of one of ’em, with the reg’lar rider, and get there a heap quicker.”

The scout and his pards hurried to get up their horses, which were hidden out in the scrub.

But by the time they had done this the stage had bobbed out of sight. By and by they even ceased to hear it; though, before the sounds of its flight ceased, a crashing sound reached them, much as if the stage had been overturned.

“That girl is shore gittin’ a run fer her money,” observed Nomad; “thet is, ef she likes fast goin’ in an ole stagecoach. I’m hopin’ she ain’t hurted none whatever.”

They were quickly galloping along the trail after the stage.

When they came in sight of it they saw what had happened. Scared by shadows at one side of the way, the horses had swung out of the plain road, then had vainly tried to get past, a big bowlder by going one on each side of it; the result of which was that the pole of the stage had struck the rock, breaking the pole, bringing the horses to a violent stop, and tumbling the stage over on its side. In addition, the horses had snarled themselves in their harness with a perfection that rendered them helpless.

Hank Elmore was aghast when he beheld the damage.

“I wonder what et done fer ther woman?” was Nomad’s query. “I don’t see her stirrin’ round, and ef she ain’t eternally smashed, I sh’d think thet she’d git outer ther ole hearse.”

“I am guessing,” said the baron, “dot she iss inkinscious ag’in.”

“Repetition of a thing creates a habit,” said the man from Laramie, with a laugh on his lips. “I’m hoping it won’t be so in her case; as unconsciousness would be a bad habit to cultivate.”

They galloped up to the stage and the tangled horses. But when they had done so and looked into the vehicle, they were struck with amazement.

_The woman was not in the stage!_

“Wow! What’s ther meanin’ of et?” Nomad whooped.

“Uff she had peen sbilt oudt alongk der vay ve musdt haf seen her,” said the German.

“That cushion has fallen, and maybe she is crumpled up under it,” Buffalo Bill suggested.

But she was not under the cushion; nor was she in the stage at all.

Hank Elmore, fuming and growling, was trying to get his horses untangled.

“This trip puts ther kibosh on any I ever took,” he growled. “I have been through hold-ups a-plenty, but this is wuss than any of ’em, fer me. One o’ you fellers that’s got a sharp knife lend a hand yere; this hawse has twisted ’leventeen bowknots o’ leather round his forrud laigs, and I cain’t untie none of ’em; we’ve got ter do some knife work, I reckon.”

Wild Bill sprang to his aid, and the recalcitrant harness was hacked away.

After making certain that the woman was not in or near the stage, the scout requested Nomad and the baron to look for trails near by, then turned about and retraced his way, leaning over from the saddle, searching carefully.

A whoop from Nomad stopped the scout and brought him back.

“I’ve found tracks,” said the trapper, “but they ain’t hers; look like a grizzly b’ar’s; but thet cain’t be, fer a grizzly don’t w’ar shoes.”

The scout flung himself out of the saddle; and, leaving Bear Paw standing in the trail, he hurried over to the spot occupied by the baron and Nomad. Wild Bill and Hank Elmore were still unsnarling the stage horses.

The trapper pointed solemnly to some tracks that he and the baron had found.

“Erbout big ernough fer a grizzly,” said Nomad, “an’ ther feller thet made ’em shore shuffled along jest like a b’ar; yit I reckon ’et war a man, ’count o’ ther shoes. I never yit heerd thet b’ars war addicted ter ther shoe habit.”

The tracks were large, showing they had been made by shoes of the biggest size. As the trapper stated, the wearer had progressed with a shuffling movement, as was to be told by the fact that where the ground was soft the tracks were long-drawn, indicating that the feet had slid along, instead of being well lifted.

“Der kvestion vot me unt Nomat haf peen asking,” said the baron, “iss, Dit he haf der vomans?”

“We couldn’t tell, Buffler; fer, ye see, though them tracks sink purty deep, it may be bercause ther feller was a purty good weight hisself; ther size o’ them feet indercates a big man.”

“We’ll see if we can pick up the trail of the woman,” said the scout. “That is, if she left the stage at this point, and not before it reached here. It seems to me, though, that she could not have got out of the stage, the way it was tearing along, until it made its stop right here.”

“What would she want ter leave it fer?” asked Nomad.

“She iss Vera Bright,” said the baron.

“By which the baron means, I judge,” the scout explained, “that she has been little better at times than a comrade and friend of outlaws, and perhaps is not to be trusted to do the honest thing in this case.”

“Vot I am t’inking iss dot perhabs she ditn’t vant to seen you, Cody. She might haf a reasons.”

The scout was searching for tracks of the woman.

Soon he found them--off on the right; small tracks, going in the same direction of the large ones.

“Now, which were made first,” he asked, “the woman’s, or the tracks of the big feet? You can see that both are fresh.”

“Idt gidts me,” the baron confessed.

“Likewise, hyer,” said Nomad. “Was she follerin’ ther man, er was he follerin’ her; er was they travelin’ independent? Ther only way ter find out is ter overtake ’em, I reckon.”

The horses had been released from the tangled harness, and the disgusted stage driver was tying them to some trees. Wild Bill walked over to the place where Buffalo Bill and his pards were discussing the trails.

“I’ve been hearing your talk,” he said. “And I judge you’re up in the air.”

The scout admitted it.

“What you going to do?”

“Follow these trails, and see what became of the woman first. Then try to pick up the trail left by Tim Benson. I suppose there is no doubt the fellow was Benson?”

“Miss Vera Bright declared he was Benson.”

“Budt can she pe trusdted?” asked Schnitzenhauser.

“I think so, in that,” Wild Bill told him. “She was scared, and she seemed to be speaking the truth. Yet I can’t understand why she left the stage here, unless the jolt she got when the stage hit that rock unsettled her mind a bit.”

Buffalo Bill followed along the trail of the woman.

“It’s a thing we’ve got to find out,” he said.