CHAPTER XXXV.

THE ATTACK ON THE STAGE.

After tarrying with the mustang catchers of the Bitter Water, and trying to study Toby Sam, Black John, and others, Buffalo Bill and his friends departed, with no very clear conclusions, except a deepening suspicion against Toby Sam.

They journeyed toward the stage trail, thinking to intersect it where the stage would pass, and there get a final word with Lena Forest, who was to take the stage that day to the railroad.

As they approached the crossing, they heard what was undoubtedly an attack on the stagecoach.

Buffalo Bill and his companions rode rapidly toward the shots and the tumult.

When they reached the trail they saw only a woman running about in distraction. The stage and the outlaws were gone. The woman was Lena Forest.

“The robbers have taken her emeralds!” was the conclusion of Buffalo Bill, as he dashed up to her, with Pawnee Bill and Nomad at his heels.

She stared at him wild-eyed, and then rushed to meet him.

“Bruce!” she cried. “They have carried him away.”

It was not the gems she thought of, but her lover.

“And the emeralds?” said Buffalo Bill.

“They are here,” she said. “I concluded to carry them myself. The stage was attacked right here by masked men. They took my watch and purse, but didn’t know of the emeralds; but they carried away Bruce! He must be--be followed at once.”

Buffalo Bill slipped out of the saddle.

“Where are the other passengers?” he said. “What became of them?”

“They went on in the stage, after the holdup. The driver whipped up his horses and drove on; but I threw open the coach door and leaped out. I couldn’t go on, for Bruce had been seized and carried away by the road agents. I wanted to do something to help him; but when I got back here the road agents were gone. They seemed in a great hurry, and did their work quickly.”

“Did you get a look at the face of any one of them?” Pawnee Bill asked.

“They were masked.”

“What kind of horses did they ride?”

“I don’t know; Indian ponies, it seems to me.”

“And they went south?”

“Yes; toward the mountains.”

Lena declared her belief that the road agents had taken young Clayton because they had received word in some manner of the emeralds, and believed he was carrying them.

“When they discover their mistake,” she said, “they may kill him!” She looked appealingly at Buffalo Bill. “I risked my life to save you from the fire, Mr. Cody,” she reminded; “and now I ask in return that you help me to rescue Bruce from the hands of those men, if it can be done. It must be done, if he is not slain by them at once, or as soon as they find he hasn’t the emeralds.”

Buffalo Bill was ready to give her the promise asked.

“One of us will go with you to the railroad, or back to Glendive,” he said; “and the others will follow the outlaws as fast as possible.”

“No, no!” she cried. “I am going with you!”

Altogether, it seemed to him that the situation was unique. The outlaws had attacked the stage to get possession of the emeralds. Not finding them, and believing that young Clayton had them, they were carrying him away, and had gone in great haste. And now the girl who really carried on her person the coveted gems was urging a pursuit of the road agents, and declaring her intention of taking part in it.

“We have no horse for you,” he said, to dissuade her. “Besides, we need a larger force, for there will probably be a fight. If one of us conducts you to Glendive, or the railroad, he could summon help.”

“The delay will be too great,” she urged. “Those men ought to be followed at once, and we can’t weaken your force by sending a man away. Some chance may come to help Bruce. And I must go with you.” She looked at the scout’s horse. “Your horse will carry double, I think; and you’ll find me a good horsewoman. I can mount behind you.”

It was a waste of time to protest against the wishes of such a woman. Moreover, Buffalo Bill admired her pluck and high courage, and he knew she would be no weakling. The woman who could climb a wall of that perilous cañon and hurl a rope to him, as she had done, had more than the usual share of coolness and daring. In short, he recognized in this brown-haired, bright-faced young woman the stuff of which heroines are made.

“The emeralds!” he said, as a final objection.

“Let them go! I’d give them to the road agents willingly if they would release Bruce. And, Mr. Cody, I confess to you that is what I mean to do if I get the chance--offer the gems to those men for Bruce’s release. We can’t fight them, they’re too strong; but we might buy them, if we can get in touch with them to enter into negotiations. That’s what I hope to do. They want the emeralds, not Bruce.”

“Very true,” he admitted. “I think they want the emeralds much more than they do him.”

“What I can’t understand is, how they knew I had them, or anything about them. But they did. They searched Bruce hurriedly; and I heard one of them tell him to hand over the emeralds. Where did they find out about them?”

“I’ll make a confession to you,” said Buffalo Bill, “as we ride along. Lucky this horse is big and strong, and doesn’t object to double burdens!” he cried, as he helped her to mount to the back of his horse, and then he swung up into the saddle.

Pawnee Bill and Nomad started their horses, and turned into the broad trail left by the road agents when they rode away with their prisoner.

“The confession I make is,” said Buffalo Bill, “that a man who, I believe, was in this stage holdup, was seen by me at your uncle’s home when I was there--when I came there with the emeralds, after the fire. I didn’t want to tell you before, and make you uneasy. But I saw him out under the tree, and when I tried to speak with him he ran. I have been thinking the matter over since, and am pretty sure now that he listened at the window, or under the floor.”

“Under the floor?”

“You’ll remember that I asked you if your uncle kept a dog? That was because I had seen a hole under the floor which appeared as if something--some animal or man--had recently been in it. I think now that the man I’m speaking of had really been under the floor. If so, he probably heard our talk about the emeralds.

“Now, another thing: That man my friends and I saw with the mustang catchers of the Bitter Water. He is called Toby Sam.”

“You think the mustang catchers had a hand in this holdup?”

“It looks it. I’m guessing a good deal, you see, and really am in the dark; but that is my present guess.”

The horses were going at a gallop now.

Buffalo Bill drew rein, and asked the others to stop.

“We’re foolish,” he said, “to take those emeralds on with us. The thing to do is to hide them here somewhere. Then, no matter what happens, they will be safe.”

“But I intend to offer them for the release of my dear Bruce,” she objected.

“It wouldn’t be right to the memory of your uncle,” said the scout. “He gave you those emeralds for a certain purpose.”

“Yes, to make my life happy; but it can never be happy if Bruce should be killed, especially if I had the feeling that I was to blame because I held back the emeralds.”

Nevertheless, Buffalo Bill, Pawnee Bill, and Nomad talked her out of the notion of attempting to make this sacrifice of the gems.

“You are wiser than I,” she said, in submitting. “Do with them as you like.”

Accordingly, they concealed the emeralds in the buckskin bag at the foot of a small tree, whose location it would be easy to remember. Then they went on with the girl, following in the road agents’ trail, and discussing the question of whether Pawnee Bill had not better ride to Glendive for assistance.

Hardly were they out of sight of the tree where they had buried the gems when Black John, the leader of the mustang catchers, came out of some bushes not far off, and advanced into the open, leading his horse.

“Now, what in thunder did they bury there?” he was saying. “I’ll jes’ take a look, and see!”

He found the place where the emeralds had been hid, and unearthed them.

“Great Rocky Mountains!” he gasped, when he opened the buckskin bag and saw the priceless emeralds that lay in it. “But all the fiends’ luck, if this ain’t a funny deal! Here we planned to rob the stage and git the emeralds that Toby Sam tole us about. He said that the young feller was to carry ’em, for safety. I was late gittin’ here; and before I could do more’n hide they had gone for the stage, and was kitin’ out south with the young feller a prisoner. And now here comes along Buffalo Bill and his crowd, with the young lady, and before goin’ furder they buries the jewels here, fer me! Waugh! I’ve heard of mericles, and this is one of ’em!”

He held up the gems and let them slide through his greedy fingers.

“Luck--luck, such luck!” he muttered. “I’m wadin’ in luck, I’m swimmin’ in it. I’m jes’ natcherly wallerin’ in luck! Hoop-la! Emeralds fer a king! And now they’re right here in my fist.”

Craft and greediness came to him.

“Nobody’s seen me; the boys has gone on with Stockton; and here I’ve got the emeralds. Nobody’s seen me!” He looked all around, and saw not a person anywhere. “By the great tarantulas, why should I divide ’em with the other fellers? Why should I? We expected to git holt of ’em, and divide ’em up, and it would have been a handsome haul fer each of us, even then. Toby Sam put us onto it because he was too durn cowardly to try to make the riffle himself. But now--now they’re mine! Why shouldn’t I hold ’em, and say nothin’? But durn ef I don’t, too!”

He stowed the buckskin bag of emeralds somewhere in an inner pocket of his coat. Then he mounted his horse and rode slowly in the direction taken by the road agents, and by the men and the girl who had pursued them.

“Luck!” he was muttering. “I’m swimmin’, I’m wallerin’, in luck. Was there ever sech luck in the world before? I don’t believe it. Hope to Harry I won’t wake up and find that I’m jes’ dreamin’; that I ain’t here, and there ain’t been no holdup; and that there ain’t any emeralds at all! Oh, gosh all fiddlesticks, wouldn’t that make me sweat! Surely I can’t be dreamin’! Lemme take another look at ’em, to be certain.”

He took another look, and was sure that he was wide awake, and that the emeralds were really in his possession.

“Luck!” he cried. “Hoop-la! I’m rollin’ in the biggest luck I ever heard of.”

Then he rode on, jubilant and excited beyond words to express.