CHAPTER XXXI.

THE THEFT OF THE NUGGETS.

When Lieutenant Barlow discovered that May Arlington was not with the Cheyennes, he dropped out of their midst and began a search for her.

On his part there was no superstitious belief that the spirits of the Moonlight Mountains had been concerned in that “attack” on the Indians. He knew he had heard the yelling of a white man.

Who that white man was he did not know, of course; but he suspected Buffalo Bill. As for Ben Stevens, Barlow thought Ben was in prison at Fort Cimarron.

He had all along believed that Buffalo Bill would lead a hot pursuit; and he had fancied, too, that the scout would have at his back a strong body of troopers. His experience as a soldier had taught him that the troopers would not delay in following the young bucks who had broken from their reservation. Hence, as he set out to look for the missing girl, he had in mind the possibility of meeting white men; and it was a possibility which was very disturbing, for he knew full well that if captured and taken a prisoner back to the fort he could expect little mercy there.

He had very definite ideas as to what he wished to do.

First, he must find the girl; for he wished to take her with him. Her beauty had inflamed his mind, and he intended to force her to become his wife, in some remote place to which he would flee when he had secured the store of gold which he sought. That was, after all, the chief end--the securing of that gold. With it, he would be independent. Without it, he feared he could do nothing, unless it were to live by his wits as a card sharper.

Luck seemed to be with him, for he soon came upon the girl, finding her afoot and alone, bewildered and frightened in the darkness. She had fallen from her horse in the stampede, and had run from the noise of the Indians, thinking safety lay in a direction away from them.

She ran from him, thinking at first he was an Indian; and then ran still harder when he called out to her and she knew who he really was. But he overtook her very quickly, being on horseback, and drew rein beside her in the darkness.

“Miss Arlington,” said the renegade, bending from his horse, and then leaping down beside her, “I have been looking everywhere for you.”

She drew herself up defiantly, and answered him with cold scorn.

“Mr. Barlow, I refuse to go with you; I’d rather fall into the hands of the Indians.”

“That’s foolish,” he said; “I intend to help you.”

“I refuse to go with you!” she repeated desperately, and she began to run from him.

He followed, calling to her in persuasive tones, and leading his horse.

Seeing that he was likely thus to lose her in the darkness, and that his words were without effect, he remounted and pursued her, and overtook her again in a short time.

“You are acting silly in this matter,” he asserted. “Let me help you. Here, you may ride my horse.”

She stopped, in hesitation; for the thought came to her that she might get on his horse and then make an attempt to leave him.

But he knew what was in her mind.

“You may ride,” he said, “and I’ll walk. We’ll not go near the Indians, if you say not to; though, since I know that young chief, you’re really safer there than any place else.”

“Who was it made that outcry?” she asked.

“No one knows. Some crazy herder likely. There are sheep herders down in this section, I’ve heard.”

“Then you don’t think that it could have been some one from the fort?”

“I don’t think it could have been,” he said.

She felt helpless and bewildered in the darkness; and she really feared the Indians. So, after some further hesitation and questions, with protestations of good intentions on his part, she mounted to the saddle he had vacated. But he took care that she should make no attempt to get away, for he led the horse by the bit, walking at its head.

He went in the direction of the Cheyennes, while protesting to her that he meant to do nothing of the kind, and that as soon as it was light enough to see he would start with her for the fort.

She did not believe him, but she felt so helpless she did not know what to do, and drifted on in this manner.

Then, almost before she knew it, they were again in the midst of Red Wing’s band of young Cheyennes, and she was as much of a prisoner as she had been before.

Wild Bill had disappeared, however, from their midst, and she hoped he would follow and try to release her, for she had heard of him, and knew him to be the friend of any one in distress.

Before day came again, the Cheyennes were in the midst of the village of their friends, who were Cheyennes that had fled to this part of the country after the last Cheyenne war, and had been permitted to remain there.

As soon as he was safe in this village, Barlow had the girl placed in one of the lodges, in care of an old Indian squaw, assuring the girl that it was the best he could do, and that she would not be harmed there. Then he began a search for the old medicine man who was said to have that store of sacred gold nuggets.

He found the medicine man without trouble, for the old fellow had a lodge of immense size not far from the heart of the village, where he mumbled his charms and incantations, and performed the mysterious rites which awed the Cheyennes and gave him so much power over them.

Barlow did not get to enter this lodge. The old man would not permit it, not even when Barlow was accompanied by Red Wing. Thus the young renegade got no chance to see the nuggets.

He knew their story, having overheard it from the lips of the colonel at the fort, the colonel having received it from Buffalo Bill.

The nuggets were all undoubtedly of Aztec origin; but how they had come into the hands of this medicine man was unknown. He had given one of them to Cody, as a sign of his good will and friendship, at a time when the scout had brought him out of a fever, which all his own skill and the skill of the tribe could not combat.

It was that nugget which the scout had presented to Colonel Montrose, of Fort Cimarron. The other nuggets the medicine man sacredly guarded.

The Cheyenne village was thrown into a flutter of excitement and alarm by the coming of the young Cheyennes, for it was expected that troopers would be hot upon their heels.

That night Lieutenant Barlow invaded the lodge of the medicine man, attacked him, and left him senseless on the ground, and secured the nuggets.

They were more than twenty in number, and were contained in two buckskin bags covered with strange markings and bead work.

The renegade got out of the lodge with the nuggets without discovery. He next secured a horse, for, being the “friend” of Red Wing, he was permitted to come and go freely in the village.

When he had got his horse and secured it beyond the village lodges, he came back, and called at the lodge where the girl was held as a prisoner by the old woman.

The old squaw mumbled unintelligibly, and seemed about to raise an alarm when he entered, but he gave her a shining silver piece from his pocket, which she examined with strange cackles by the light of her grease lamp.

May Arlington had started up in alarm.

“I have prepared a way of escape,” he whispered to her. “Come!”

He might have spoken the words aloud, so far as the old woman was concerned, for the hag knew no English.

May Arlington again hesitated, then she rose, trembling, and followed him.

Within the folds of her dress she had secreted a knife, which she had picked up in the lodge; with it, if necessary, she would kill Barlow, or herself. But she knew she must get out of that village. Some looks given her by certain Indian braves had terrified her so that anything was preferable to staying there.

Barlow and the girl were hardly beyond the line of the lodges, when a wild chorus of charging yells and cheers broke on the air.

Buffalo Bill and Wild Bill, with Ben Stevens, were out there, and with them was a body of troopers from Fort Cimarron. The scouts had found Stevens, and then had encountered the pursuing troopers, who, under the leadership of the scouts, had been able to make so stealthy an advance that this charge on the Cheyennes was a complete surprise.

Barlow seized May Arlington by the wrist, and started to run with her.

“Halt!” was the command, for the troopers had seen him. The light was not good, and so they thought he was an Indian, who was running to get out of the village, taking, perhaps, the white girl prisoner who was known to be there.

Barlow disregarded the command to halt, and ran to get his horse, dragging the girl with him. She began to scream, and to try to release herself, but Barlow clung to her, and to his stolen nuggets.

Another command was bellowed at him, but he still disregarded it.

There was a flash of fire and the report of a rifle. The man giving the command to halt had fired.

Barlow fell, pitching forward on his face.

The attack swept through the Cheyenne village like a whirlwind.

The Indians who sought to fight were pistoled. Where they made no resistance they were unharmed, and where they surrendered they were merely made prisoners.

Red Wing tried to lead a fierce resistance, and fell at the head of his following.

The other young bucks who had taken so gayly to the bloody warpath broke and fled, most of them being captured the next day, while some, resisting, were killed. Thus the threatened Cheyenne war was nipped in the bud.

The medicine man, though wounded by Barlow, escaped otherwise unscathed.

Buffalo Bill insisted that the sacred nuggets should be returned to him; which was done, though some of the troopers would have despoiled him if they had been permitted.

Thus the end came to Lieutenant Barlow, the young renegade, in the moment when he hoped for the success of his plans.

The end of the campaign was a quiet wedding, in the little sod house out on the prairie near Fort Cimarron.

Buffalo Bill and Wild Bill attended the wedding, and so did Colonel Montrose, and many of the troopers from the fort. As a wedding present, the colonel gave May Arlington the gold nugget which had first been brought to her in the letter.

No happier bridegroom ever lived than Ben Stevens. As for Wilkins, the young man who had carried the letter and had been to some extent the tool of Barlow, he made a full confession at his trial by court-martial. He lost his position in the army, but was not otherwise punished.