CHAPTER XVI.

A WOMAN’S VENGEANCE.

The shot which Buffalo Bill and the troopers heard, and which was followed by their advance, was fired by Pizen Jane.

Perhaps because she was a woman the cords that bound her wrists and held her to the barricade were not knotted as securely and tightly as those that bound her son. Men were desperate and low indeed when they do not, consciously or unconsciously, retain some consideration for a woman.

Pizen Jane had discovered, after a time, that she could work her wrists about in the cords. She had said nothing of her discovery, for outlaws were near her, behind the barricade; and out in front paced a sentry.

But she had begun to strain and tug at the cords, finding by and by that they gave a little.

This added to her desire to get out of them, and to that task she bent her endeavors.

Yet a long time went by before she again felt the cords slip and give under her manipulation.

After she was able to draw out one hand she stood for some time in silence, considering what she could do. Apparently, she could do nothing, because of the men near by.

She did not dare to speak of what she had done to Pool, lest she should be overheard.

After that, as she had waited, hoping for something that would create a diversion of which she could take advantage, the slow-moving time had seemed interminable.

But Pizen Jane was possessed of monumental patience.

She had waited, minute by minute and hour by hour, hoping that something would turn in her favor.

At intervals she had strained at the cords which still held one wrist, and at last freed it. Her feet were still tied at the ankles, and her body was still bound to the barricade.

She grew desperate when she saw the gray dawn breaking, and knew that day was near, when inevitably what she had done would be discovered.

She began to strain at the cords on her ankles; and at length, in her desperation, she stooped over, determined to untie them with her hands.

The sentinel out in front saw her do this.

“Hello!” he said. “What ye doin’?”

She stood erect by the barricade, her hands behind her back once more, her lips firmly compressed, and did not answer him.

Long before, Pool Clayton had become little better than a shaking jelly bag, through excess of fright. He hardly knew what the man said, and he had not discovered what his courageous mother was doing.

The man walked up to the barricade, and, stooping over, looked Pizen Jane in the face.

“Hello!” he repeated. “What you doin’?”

Then her hands flew out, and, catching the knife from his belt, she drove it into his shoulder, inflicting a wound that tumbled him back, gasping and half paralyzed.

Before the outlaws on the other side of the barricade knew just what had occurred, Pizen Jane had cut the cords that held her, had stricken loose those that bound Pool Clayton, and was climbing over the barricade, the knife and the sentry’s revolver in her hands.

“Git out o’ my way!” she snarled, striking at one of the men who sought to oppose her progress.

He fell back out of the way of the knife. Then she sprang down, and in another instant she was running toward the huts.

One of the outlaws pitched up a rifle and was on the point of shooting her.

“Don’t do it!” a companion warned, and he knocked the muzzle of the gun aside. “The boss would raise Old Ned wi’ ye, if ye should.”

Though they feared to shoot, a couple of them followed her; but when they reached the huts, though they had followed close at her heels, they could not find her.

One of them poked his head into the hut where Snaky Pete was lying, supposedly asleep.

“Hello!” he called, in a low voice. “That woman has got away, and is in the camp here some’eres.”

Snaky Pete came to his feet, and rushed to the door.

“Where is she?” he cried, his wounded lip cutting him like a knife as he said it.

“Here!” was the startling answer.

Pizen Jane seemed to rise out of the ground before him. She threw up the revolver, and fired full at him. It was the revolver shot that the scout and the troopers heard.

As its report rang out, Snaky Pete Sanborn, the outlaw and desperado, pitched forward on his face, falling dead in the door of the hut.

Pizen Jane had kept her vow.

The charge of the troopers came right on top of this, turning the attention of the outlaws to the task of repulsing the invaders. The fight that followed was sharp and hot, but it was short.

Finding that the troopers were within the camp itself, the desperadoes stationed at the barricades deserted them, climbing them and running for safety out through the pass.

Those within the camp, who had been trapped there, fought with a courage and desperation worthy of a better cause. They slew some of the troopers, and several of their own number fell.

The others tried to get out of the camp, but, being surrounded, they threw down their weapons and surrendered.

The shrill voice of Pizen Jane was heard once, as she took part in the fight against the outlaws; and once the scout beheld her, with smoking pistol, confronting one of the outlaws. When the fight had ended she was found lying dead close by the hut where she had killed her infamous and recreant husband.

Nomad was, of course, released from his unpleasant predicament. He received orders to remain a few hours longer at the camp, in order to observe whether any of the deserters returned with reënforcements--in which case he was to ride at once to Fort Thompson. If none returned, he could rejoin Buffalo Bill and the troopers at the fort, within the next three days.

Pool Clayton seemed genuinely grieved over the death of his mother, and shed bitter tears when he beheld her dead body. He was not held for the crime of being a member of the road-agent band, but was permitted to depart from that section of the country.

That a genuine reformation in his character was effected the scout believed, for afterward he had word of him, at a time when Pool was residing in a mining town called Crystal Spring, where he had secured honorable employment and seemed determined to live an honest life.