CHAPTER XIV.

THE SCOUT’S LETTER.

“Golightly!” exclaimed McGowan, when the riders had drawn rein in front of the office and the Irishman had dismounted, “what does this mean? Where’s the buckboard and the horses?”

While Golightly, stamping the ground wrathfully and shaking his fists, was telling of the theft of the rig and of the bear-trap, Nomad had been introducing the scout to Dell Dauntless.

“It’s an honor,” said the girl, leaning down from her saddle and grasping the scout’s hand firmly, “to meet a veteran of the plains like Buffalo Bill.”

“Thank you,” smiled the scout, and turned somewhat abruptly to Nomad. “Why are you back at the mine, old pard?” he asked. “I thought you were in Phœnix, by this time, waiting for Cayuse and me.”

“Would er been, Buffler, of important things hadn’t happened,” said Nomad. “Wouldn’t expect me ter keep cl’ar o’ ther mine when fireworks is due ter be set off, would ye? Miss McGowan hes been run away with, an’ we’re hyar ter tell ye erbout et.”

“We are already informed on that point, Nick. But how did you happen to discover it?”

“Already informed?” repeated Dell. “How, may I ask?”

Turning back to the girl, the scout silently handed her the message, at the same time pointing to where the arrow lay on the ground.

“This was fired into camp with an arrow, eh?” murmured the girl, passing her eyes swiftly over the communication received from the scout.

When she had done with the reading, she laid the note on the horn of her saddle and brought her gauntleted fist down on it sharply.

“This proves it!” she declared.

“Proves what?” queried the scout.

“Why, the guess I had already made that Bernritter and Bascomb were back of Dell’s abduction.”

“Listen to Golightly, Buffalo Bill,” spoke up McGowan. “We’re getting down to cases in this matter. Go on, Golightly,” he added to the Irishman, “and tell Buffalo Bill what you have just told me.”

Golightly, with many “begorrys” and “bedads,” and a wrathful twist of his brogue, repeated to the scout what he had just told the mine-owner.

Dell followed the recital with a narration of her own experiences.

Thus the method of the abduction was cleared up, and the scout and McGowan were given clear understanding of all the details.

Thereupon Dell explained about the letter which she had brought from Phœnix for Buffalo Bill, and placed it in his hand.

The scout tore open the envelope and was soon deep in the letter’s contents. His face expressed surprise and wonder as he read.

“Here’s something,” said he, folding up the letter and placing it in his pocket, “something that makes it necessary for me to take the field against Bascomb, no matter what your decision regarding Bascomb and Bernritter may be, McGowan.”

“What is it?” inquired the mine-owner.

“My letter is from the commandant at Fort Apache, and asks me to use my utmost endeavors to capture a deserter from the army. The man’s name is Slocum, but he was last seen in Phœnix, where he was using the name of Bascomb.”

“Jumpin’ taranches!” crooned old Nomad. “How these hyar trails o’ trouble does cross each other, sometimes!”

“Slocum, otherwise Bascomb,” proceeded the scout, “was a mutinous soldier. He was under arrest at Fort Apache, some weeks ago, for insubordination. In some manner he got hold of a revolver, shot his guard, and took to the hills. From the description of the fellow contained in the letter, there is no doubt in my mind but that the rascal with Bernritter is the same man.”

McGowan looked perturbed.

“If you have to take the field against Bascomb,” said he, “then it will be impossible for me to promise him and Bernritter immunity, and place the writing, with a five-pound bar of bullion, by the old shaft. Your activity would be construed as a breach of confidence on my own part. Can’t you put this off, Buffalo Bill, until my daughter is safely in my hands?”

Dell Dauntless whirled on McGowan with fiercy eyes.

“Mr. McGowan!” she cried. “Can it be possible that you are scared?--and that you intend to carry out the demands of two bluffing rascals like Bascomb and Bernritter?”

“I am anxious only for my daughter’s safety.”

“How do you know that Annie will be returned to you, even if you should give up what Bascomb and Bernritter demand?”

“I--I don’t; but I don’t feel like taking any chances.”

“Tush! Annie McGowan is my best friend, and I would face any danger for her. I would think of her safety, too, but I wouldn’t fall in with the schemes of these lawless scoundrels. I shall not return to the Double D Ranch until Annie is safe at the Three-ply--but you take my advice and give Buffalo Bill and me a free hand in this matter. Being Annie’s father, it is only natural that you should be so worried you can’t get the proper perspective of this business. Leave it to others. You’ll help, Buffalo Bill?” she asked, facing the scout.

“Of course,” was the scout’s reply.

“Nomad said you would,” said the girl.

“Orders from Fort Apache make it necessary for me to do my best to capture Bascomb; but, before I had received the orders, I had already promised McGowan my aid.”

“What’s the first thing to be done?” queried McGowan anxiously.

A Chinaman stepped out of the door of the chuck-shanty just then, and began pounding a gong. A long whistle came from the mill, and instantly the roar of the stamps ceased. Night-shift miners and day-shift mill men came running from bunk-house and mill.

“The first thing,” laughed the scout, “is to eat a good dinner.”

“I can’t eat,” said McGowan. “Isn’t there something we can do, at once?”

“I’m formulating a plan,” the scout answered; “but the time we spend on our dinner will not be lost, nor affect one iota our chances for effecting the rescue of your daughter. If you’re in on this deal, Miss Dauntless,” he added to the girl, “you had better put out that white pinto while we’re in the chuck-shanty. Do the same with your horse, Nick,” he finished.

The horses were taken to the corral, and McGowan, Buffalo Bill, Nomad, and Dell Dauntless went to the mine-owner’s table in the dining-room. Golightly joined the miners and mill men at their own table.

It was a silent meal that was eaten at McGowan’s table. The mine-owner, his mind on his daughter, ate little; the scout and the girl were thoughtful, and Nomad, furtively watching his pard’s face, held his peace to let his pard’s mind finish its planning.

“Well?” queried McGowan impatiently, when they had reassembled in front of the office, “what is your plan, Buffalo Bill?”

“Write out your agreement to drop proceedings against Bascomb and Bernritter, McGowan,” returned the scout, “and have ready your five-pound bar of bullion.”

“You’re going to fall in with the scoundrelly plan, then?” cried Dell disappointedly.

“I am merely going to _seem_ to do so,” the scout answered. “About eleven o’clock to-night Nomad will take the agreement and the bullion and go to the deserted shaft. He will place both on the ore-dump; then he will draw away, hide himself, and see what happens. Whoever comes for what he leaves, he will follow. In this manner it may be possible to discover the rendezvous of Bascomb and Bernritter and their red allies.”

“My agreement will hold, Buffalo Bill, if I sign it,” said McGowan.

“_Your_ agreement may hold, but _I_ have made no agreement. Bascomb is a deserter. As such, your agreement will not be binding upon me. Then, too, unless your daughter is released, your agreement will not be binding upon you, McGowan.”

“I see, I see,” murmured the mine-owner.

“Meanwhile,” pursued the scout, with an anxious look at the hills, “I shall go and try to discover what Little Cayuse is doing. Miss Dauntless, while I’m at the corral making ready, will you go to the chuck-shanty and get a day’s rations for me?”

“I’ll get a day’s rations for each of us,” answered Dell, “for I’m going to ride with you. When you make your own horse ready, Buffalo Bill, get mine under saddle, too, will you?”

The scout studied the girl with fresh interest.

“It is only right to tell you, Miss Dauntless,” said he, “that the Apaches are probably in the hills with Bascomb and Bernritter; also three white scoundrels who have joined issue with them. The danger----”

“You don’t know me,” laughed the girl. “Will you let me go?”

“Very well, if you feel that you want to.”

The scout started for the corral, and Dell hastened toward the chuck-shanty. It was about two o’clock when they mounted, the girl on her white cayuse, Silver Heels, and the scout on his big black horse Bear Paw, and rode over the rim of the valley.

The inclination of the arrow, as it clung to the office door, had given Little Cayuse his clue as to the direction from which the Apache had done his shooting. The scout, no less than the Piute, had taken note of the arrow’s slant, and his course across the rim of the valley was in the exact direction taken by Cayuse.

Just over the rise, the scout and the girl found themselves in a rocky arroyo.

“Here’s a clue left by Little Cayuse,” remarked the scout, drawing rein in the bottom of the arroyo and sliding out of his saddle. “I felt sure he would leave one. Just a moment, Miss Dauntless.”

“Dell, if you please,” said the girl, “unless you want me to call you Mr. Cody. We’re not at all formal out here, as I reckon you know. I’m Dell to all my friends.”

“Dell, then,” smiled the scout, kneeling down in front of Little Cayuse’s clue, which consisted of a heap of white quartz from a “blow-out” which strewed the arroyo. Six fragments of quartz were arranged in a pile, and to one side of the pile lay two more fragments in a line.

“That,” said the scout, “is the work of my little Piute pard. It proves that he picked up the trail of the Apache that launched the arrow, and that he followed him up the arroyo. Those two pieces to one side of the heap and lying in a line, tell the direction.”

The scout climbed into his saddle again, and he and the girl continued up the arroyo.

“Your little Piute pard must be a wonder,” said Dell.

“He is,” averred the scout. “He is not only immune from what is called ‘fear,’ but he has also a clever brain, and never fails to use it. I did not tell him to leave a clue as to where he had gone, or to leave a trail for us to follow; yet we have found the clue, and you can depend on it we will find some sort of a trail.”

“I’d like to know him,” said Dell. “Having trained with you so long, he has probably adopted some of your methods. Ah!” she finished, her eyes on the flinty earth of the arroyo’s bottom, “the Apache was mounted.”

“I had already discovered that,” said the scout, “but I’d like to have you tell me how you know the Apache was mounted. The soil is too hard for hoof-marks.”

The girl slipped from her saddle and pointed to a stone. The stone had been overturned, with the stained part that had been lying next the earth now uppermost.

“A horse kicked that stone over,” said she. “No moccasined Indian ever did it, traveling afoot.”

“Right,” said the scout; and, like Nomad’s, his first impressions of the girl began to change.

“Besides,” smiled the girl, getting back into her saddle, “near that heap of quartz the mesquit brush had been nibbled by a horse’s teeth.”

“That’s what proved to me that the Apache left a horse by the bushes when he climbed up the rise and unloosed the arrow. I see you’re wise to the trail. There’s a pleasure for me in reading such signs.”

“For me, too.”

After a few minutes of steady riding, the arroyo divided itself into two branches. Well within the right-hand branch were three pieces of quartz, laid in a line as the other two had been.

“What would you argue from that, Dell?” queried the scout.

“Why,” answered the girl, “I should say that Little Cayuse followed the right-hand fork.”

“Anything else?”

“And that the Apache had been joined by another.”

“Right again. Can you shoot?”

“A little,” Dell answered diffidently. “I can throw a rope, or a knife, too--after a fashion. I have had entire charge of the Double D Ranch ever since my father died, three years ago.”

Her voice quivered a little, but almost instantly she put her emotion from her.

The scout made no answer. Slowly Dell Dauntless was revealing herself to him as a spirited and capable young woman.

As they progressed up the right-hand fork of the arroyo, the walls grew higher and steeper, giving the defile almost the appearance of a gulch.

They passed more fragments of quartz, the number having been added to until, at the last, there were six pieces.

“There are more Apaches joining the one who shot the arrow,” said Buffalo Bill, “and----”

The last word was clipped short by an incisive report, the whistle of a bullet, a flapping of the brim of Dell’s brown sombrero, and a little spout of sand between Silver Heels and Bear Paw.

If Dell Dauntless was startled she did not show it.

“A poor shot,” she commented, taking off her hat and looking at the brim.

“It lacked only an inch of being a murderous shot,” returned Buffalo Bill. “It came from the top of the right-hand wall, and proves that the Apaches know what we are about and are trailing us along the rim of the gulch. They can get at us, and it is impossible for us to get at them. Let’s see what Silver Heels can do in a pinch.”

The scout dug in with his irons and Bear Paw flung himself up the gulch, taking at a leap every bush or boulder that got in his way.

Dell raced along behind, Silver Heels doing nobly, and displaying more fire and bottom than the scout had supposed him to have under his sleek white hide.

The cayuse, like his rider, was something of a revelation to Buffalo Bill.

The wisdom of speed in that forward movement along the gulch was quickly apparent.

The crack of firearms began all along the top of the right-hand wall.

Both walls continued to increase in height and to draw nearer and nearer together. The sun could not penetrate the depths of the gulch, and the bottom lay in heavy shadow.

“So long as the Apaches hide themselves,” said Buffalo Bill, “we can do nothing to discourage them in this attack they are making. I am going to try a ruse to draw them down into the gulch, and within reach of our six-shooters. It is a time-honored ruse, but it will work nine times out of ten. At the next shot, Dell, I’m going to tumble out of my saddle. You ride on, as though too frightened to turn back, and catch Bear Paw. Don’t stop until you reach the darkest part of the gulch, then round-to under the lee of a boulder, and watch.”

“Trust me,” answered the girl.

The shot for which the scout was waiting was not long in coming. It cracked out above and gouged into the flinty earth several feet in advance of Buffalo Bill; nevertheless, he gave a wild cry, dropped his reins, flung up his hands, and wilted from Bear Paw’s back.

Apparently his fall was a heavy one; but, really, it was only nicely calculated to appear so. With hardly a jar, the scout had struck the ground and straightened out.

It was all so well done that, for an instant, Dell’s heart flew into her throat, and she feared that the last bullet really had reached its mark. She would have drawn rein, in spite of her instructions, had Buffalo Bill not called softly for her to ride on and catch Bear Paw.

As Dell flickered on up the gulch, fierce cries of triumph floated down from the right-hand wall. Indians on horseback showed themselves against the sky-line--five of them--and peered downward with hands shielding their eyes.

Well in the shadow of the gulch above, Dell captured Bear Paw, dropped his bridle-reins over her saddle-pommel, and tossed her own reins over Silver Heels’ head. With the reins in this position, the white cayuse would stand as though tied to a post.

Dropping to the ground, the girl crept back down the gulch for a little way, and watched further developments from behind a boulder.

The five Apaches, thinking the scout had been slain, were dismounting and making a hurried descent into the gulch.

Their descent was a race, for the first man to reach the scout would secure his scalp. And to secure the scalp of Pa-e-has-ka, the long-haired chief, was an honor, indeed!

Slipping, sliding, jumping, the redskins drew nearer and nearer the bottom of the gulch. One was well in the lead, and Dell, her nerves aquiver with excitement, watched his dark form come closer and closer to the scout.

At last, when the leading Apache was about to make the final jump to the bottom of the gulch, and was already fingering the hilt of his scalping-knife, Buffalo Bill regained his feet.

_Crack, crack, crack!_ rang out his revolvers.

Two of the Apaches--the one in advance and the other next behind him--were wounded and dropped into the gulch bottom; but they were not badly wounded. They were scared far more than hurt, and they at once took to their heels, one going up the gulch and the other down.

Instantly a thrill of alarm shot through the scout on the girl’s account.

Four Indians were still on the gulch wall, but they were frantically climbing toward the top again. Leaving them to their own devices, the scout rushed after the Apache who had gone bounding up the gulch.

This redskin had a wound in his left arm, but he still clung to the hilt of the knife.

Dell saw him coming, covering the ground with great leaps. If he ever reached the horses, the girl knew that he would make way with one, or both, of them--and this was something that must not be allowed to happen.

Fearlessly the girl sprang out from behind her boulder and planted herself between the Apache and the horses.

Undaunted by the sight, the savage kept on, flourishing his knife and yelling furiously.

“Shoot!” cried Buffalo Bill.

He feared to let loose a bullet himself, for he, and the Indian, and the girl, were in a direct line with each other. Had he fired, and had the redskin dodged at the exact moment, the bullet might have struck Dell.

But there was no need for the scout to use his weapons.

Hardly had the command to fire left his lips when the gulch took up the echoes of the girl’s revolver.

The Apache was caught in the air; and when he fell, he came down sprawling--wounded a second time, and harmless to do the girl any injury.

“Well done!” cried the scout. “Dell Dauntless, you’re a plucky girl.”

“That wasn’t so much,” Dell answered deprecatingly. “He had only a knife, and you had already wounded him at that.”

“His first wound did not interfere very much with his ability to attack you. I only shot to wound.”

“That was the way with me.”

“These Apaches are the tools of Bascomb and Bernritter. They ought to be rounded up and driven back to their reservation. Why Apache got such a bad heart?” the scout asked, halting beside the wounded Indian.

The Apache made no response, other than to try and sink his teeth into the scout’s leg. The scout stepped back quickly.

“Look out for him, Buffalo Bill!” exclaimed Dell. “He’s as venomous as a tiger-cat.”

Dell’s bullet had struck the Apache in the thigh, making walking impossible.

“We can’t bother with him,” said the scout. “There are four more reds around here, and they’ll probably happen along and take care of him. We’ll mount and keep on until we find Little Cayuse. I can’t understand what’s become of the boy. The Apache he was following was joined by four others; if he still continued to follow the Apaches, he ought to be somewhere in this vicinity.”

“I should think,” hazarded Dell, “we ought to have met him before this.”

“We ought to, and there must be some good reason why we haven’t. We’ll try and discover the reason.”

The darkness of the gulch rendered difficult the task of looking for the stones Cayuse had been piling at irregular intervals. Nevertheless, the scout scanned every step of the way carefully, but without result.

Meanwhile, as they rode, Dell kept a sharp watch for Indians. She saw none, so it was evident that the taste the Apaches had had of the scout’s resourcefulness had been sufficient to discourage them in their sniping tactics.

As the scout spurred on, his alarm for Little Cayuse increased.

“He’s plenty able to take care of himself,” the scout said to the girl, “but any one, I don’t care how wary and cautious, is apt to be caught napping, or taken at a disadvantage.”

“He’s an Indian, and only a boy. It doesn’t seem to me that the Apaches would be very hard on him even if they did capture him.”

“He’s a Piute, Dell, and the Piutes and Apaches haven’t any use for each other. Then, apart from their tribal hostility, I suppose the Apaches are smarting to play even for what happened at the Three-ply Mine the other day. They lost a couple of warriors during that fight. They know Cayuse is a pard of mine, and that it was owing to myself and my pards that the fight went against them. The fact that Cayuse is a boy wouldn’t cause the Apaches to have any mercy on him.”

The gulch walls widened by degrees as they continued on. This allowed more sunlight to come into the defile and made the surroundings plainer.

“The Apaches must have doubled back on their trail,” Dell suggested, “or else Cayuse never followed them this far.”

“It’s about an even chance whether the Apaches have doubled back, or whether something went wrong with Cayuse farther down the gulch. If we don’t pick up another clue pretty soon, we’ll about face and double back on our own trail.”

At that moment the scout’s attention was attracted to another defile opening into the left wall of the one they were following.

It was a narrow break in the lavalike crust of the earth, and, inasmuch as its trend was due east and west, the sun penetrated it to the bottom.

It is doubtful whether the scout would have paid much attention to the defile had the sunlight not rested upon some object which flashed in his eyes.

The wide-awake Dell caught the flash as quickly as did the scout.

“Is that a piece of ore with mica in it, Buffalo Bill?” she queried, pulling up her horse.

“It may be,” was the scout’s response. “But we’ll take a look at the thing and make sure of it before we pass on.”

Together they rode over to the mouth of the smaller gulch.

The flashing object was not a piece of iron pyrites, but a short, double-edged knife.

With an exclamation, the scout hung down from his saddle and picked it up.

On the flat handle was a very crude drawing of a horse, burned into the horn.

“This belongs to Cayuse,” said the scout. “That picture on the handle is the way he signs his name.”

“Then he lost the knife?” queried the girl.

“Cayuse never loses anything so long as he is master of his own actions. I incline to the opinion that the Apaches laid a trap for him and sprung it about here. The ground shows signs of a struggle. During the struggle Cayuse’s knife dropped from its sheath, and when he was carried off his captors failed to see it. There seems to be no doubt, Dell, but that the boy is in the hands of the Apaches.”

“Then there must be more Indians than those who attacked us. They could not have had Cayuse with them while they were following us on the gulch wall and shooting down.”

“He may have been with them, or they may have left him somewhere, or----”

The scout broke off his words, while his face tightened in sharp lines.

“Or?” asked Dell.

“Or,” the scout finished, in a low tone, “they have already taken vengeance on him for their defeat at the mine.”

Thrusting the boy’s knife through his belt, Buffalo Bill dismounted, and looked carefully over the ground where the struggle resulting in the boy’s capture had taken place.

Owing to the nature of the soil, the signs were none too plain--a misplaced stone here and there and a few indentations which might have been considered only the natural results of wind and weather but for the disturbed stones.

Walking up the smaller defile a little way, the scout saw enough to convince him that the Apaches, with their prisoner, had ascended the branch.

Coming back to the waiting girl, he mounted.

“The Apaches, after the capture,” he announced, “went up the defile. They were on foot.”

“This was a good place for an ambush,” said Dell, turning in her saddle and looking back as they rode onward. “The Indians could have hidden behind boulders on both sides of the defile and sprung out on Little Cayuse as he passed.”

“It wouldn’t be like the boy to let himself get caught in such a trap. Still, it’s possible. You can trap a fox if you go about it right.”

“I’d like to know who those three white men are who are helping Bascomb and Bernritter.”

“Ruffians, I reckon, whom Bascomb managed to pick up. There are plenty of scoundrels loose in this part of the country who would help at anything if they got paid for it. The desert is full of white Arabs, as ready to slit a man’s throat as they are to eat a meal. You ought to know that, Dell.”

“I do, of course, and I haven’t any doubt but that it was easy for Bascomb and Bernritter to find men to help them in their villainy. Don’t you think, too, that they have spies in the Three-ply camp? Some one who found out Golightly was to leave, early this morning, to meet Annie at the Phœnix station?”

“Possibly. It has not been so very long, however, since Bernritter was a trusted superintendent at the camp. He must have known when Miss McGowan was expected. Armed with this knowledge, he and Bascomb laid their plans to capture the girl. They set their three masked men to watching the trail for the horses and the buckboard; and, even if McGowan himself had gone to meet the girl, instead of Golightly, the plan would have been carried out just as it was.”

This smaller defile, which the scout and the girl were ascending, had many angles and turns.

As the scout finished speaking, they rode around one of the turns and came upon a sight which brought them to an abrupt halt.

Horror rose in the girl’s eyes, and a gasp escaped her lips. She looked at the scout. His face wore an ominous frown.

Leaping out of the saddle, he hurried forward without a word.

Dell likewise dismounted and hastened after him.