CHAPTER XI.

A GIFT WITH A STRING TO IT.

Dell Dauntless pushed forward and explained the situation to the scout and his pards.

“Waugh!” tuned up old Nomad in customary fashion, “what sort of er pizen deal is Lawless tryin’ ter pull off? Me no like um; hey, Wild Bill?”

“It’s sure a queer layout,” pondered Hickok. “The fact that Lawless is behind it makes it a cinch that it doesn’t mean any good to We, Us & Co. Whatever you do, Cody, remember that.”

“Where can we see you in half an hour, Gentleman Jim?” the scout inquired, turning to the gambler.

“In my private room at the Alcazar,” answered the gambler.

“We’ll be there,” said the scout. “That’s your steer, Dell,” he added. “You’d better turn the carcass over to Tenny for the use of Spangler, at the Lucky Strike. We haven’t had any fresh meat there for a couple of days, and I think we’d all appreciate it.”

“Pete an’ me’ll take keer o’ the brute, Buffalo Bill,” said Tenny. “Tell Spangler to send his Chinks over here and get the beef.”

Dell accompanied her pards to the hotel, and waited while they put up their horses. Meantime, Spangler, delighted with the prospect of securing a supply of fresh beef, had despatched his Chinamen to the place where Tenny and Pete were making the carcass ready. Henry Blake, worn out by his rough experience, went to the general bunk-room and turned in.

Half an hour after the scout and his pards had got back to the camp they were all in Gentleman Jim’s private room at the Alcazar. Dell formed one of the party.

The gambler closed the door securely, so that no one not interested could hear anything that went on in the room. To say that all were curious would state their feelings mildly.

“Open up ther paper-talk, Gentleman Jim,” urged the old trapper, the moment the door was closed, “an’ let’s git next ter what’s doin’. I’m bracin’ myself fer somethin’ onexpected ter happen.”

“I hope,” said Wild Bill, “that what we’re going to hear will give us a chance to lay Lawless by the heels.”

“What makes it seem mighty queer that this letter should be entrusted to me,” remarked Gentleman Jim, tearing an end off the envelope, “is that I never met Lawless in my life, so far as I know.”

Leaning back in his chair, the gambler drew from the envelope a folded, legal-looking document, and two separate sheets of paper, likewise folded.

“What sort of a document is that, Gentleman Jim?” asked the scout, nodding toward the legal-looking paper.

The gambler examined the document and gave a low whistle.

“It’s a quit-claim deed to the Forty Thieves,” said he.

A chorus of surprised exclamations greeted the words.

“In whose name is the deed made out?” the scout queried.

“Buffalo Bill.”

This was even more astounding. Nomad tried to say something, but was held speechless by his amazement. All the others were in like case. A strange silence fell over the room, broken only by the rustling of paper as Gentleman Jim examined the deed.

“Amazing as this may appear,” said the gambler presently, “yet the deed has seemingly been executed in proper form. It is signed by Lawless, witnessed by Seth Coomby and Andy Streibel, and bears the seal and acknowledgment of a notary in Montegordo. It is dated three days ago.”

“I’m clear over my head,” muttered the scout. “Lawless and I are enemies. Why should he make me a gift like that?”

“Come to simmer the thing down, Buffalo Bill,” said the gambler, “it isn’t much of a gift, after all. The mine is worthless. Lawless knows that, or he wouldn’t have tried to ‘salt’ it and sell it to that Chicago man.”

“Lawless undoubtedly _thinks_ the mine is worthless,” mused the scout.

“Well, isn’t it?”

“Not by a hull row of ’dobies!” put in old Nomad. “Buffler, ye’re in luck! Lawless laid out ter hand ye a mine thet was no good; he’ll feel like kickin’ himself when he diskivers ther Forty Thieves is er bonanza--er reg’lar whale of er good thing. Why, et’s got er reef on et that makes ther Comstock Lode look like er limestone stringer.”

“Is that right?” demanded Gentleman Jim.

“It is,” went on Buffalo Bill. “Wild Bill made the discovery first. We have just come in from an exhaustive examination of the property, and we found that the Forty Thieves has an exceedingly rich vein. Lawless, in presenting me with the mine, has over-reached himself. He didn’t know of this rich vein--no one but myself and my pards knew of it. Back of all this, however, the puzzle still remains: Why should Lawless wish to present me with even a worthless mine? I’m still over my head.”

Gentleman Jim picked up the folded papers which he had drawn from the envelope with the deed.

“One of these is addressed to you, Buffalo Bill,” said he, “and the other is addressed to me. Perhaps they will shed a little light on the situation.”

Buffalo Bill took the paper the gambler handed to him, opened it, read it through, and then laughed.

“What’s et erbout, pard?” asked Nomad.

“Listen,” said the scout, and read aloud: “‘You may think you’ve downed me, Buffalo Bill, but you have another guess coming. I am giving you a deed to the Forty Thieves Mine. The mine is no good. We both know that. So the deed is not given to you from any desire on my part to tender you a token of my esteem. _The gift is a dare._ Gentleman Jim is to hold the deed, and give it to you only after you have passed three consecutive days and nights in the Forty Thieves Mine. Gentleman Jim, I know by report, is a square gambler. He will see to it that my conditions are faithfully executed. After you have passed three consecutive days and nights in the mine, you are to go to Gentleman Jim and get the deed, making the transfer legal by filing the deed for record in Montegordo--that is, if you consider a worthless mine worth bothering with to that extent. Take your pards, or as many more men as you wish, with you into the mine--_but you must stay there for three consecutive days and nights_. That will be all. If you live to claim the deed you are welcome to it. Where’s your nerve?’”

Buffalo Bill, with a queer smile playing about the corners of his mouth, refolded the paper and stowed it carefully away in his pocket.

“Of course,” he remarked, “Lawless thinks he has a trap laid for me in the Forty Thieves.”

“He’s got something up his sleeve, all right,” agreed Wild Bill, “but if he thinks you haven’t got the nerve to hang out in that mine for three days and nights, why, he’s wide of his trail, that’s all.”

“Ther mine’s wuth ther risk,” said Nomad.

“I’m not thinking so much about the mine, Nick,” went on the scout, “as I am about the chance this fool proposition of Lawless’ gives me to lay alongside of him. That villain ought to have his claws clipped, and I reckon I and my pards are the ones to do it.”

A vociferous affirmative came from Nomad, Wild Bill, Little Cayuse, and Dell.

“He’s a deep one,” remarked Gentleman Jim. “The mine is evidently a trap, and he’s luring you into it. It is also perfectly evident that he knows you will not fulfil his terms for the mine itself, but simply because he gives you a dare.”

“Buffler Bill an’ pards never takes a dare,” said Nomad.

“We’ll meet Lawless half-way in this one,” said the scout resolutely. “By doing so, we can, not only get the mine, but likewise capture Lawless.”

“Sure!” cried Wild Bill. “Are your pards in with you on the deal, Cody?”

“On one consideration only,” was the answer.

“What’s that?”

“Why, that if we stay out the three consecutive days and nights successfully, we are all to be joint owners of the mine.”

Silence followed the words.

“If all of you share the risk,” smiled the scout, “you ought also to share the profits.”

That brought an agreement.

“Of course,” the scout went on, “I am not dropping into Lawless’ plans because I want to dare him to do his worst, or because the mine lures me to it, but simply and solely because this promises an opportunity for capturing one of the worst trouble-makers in the country. If the mine comes to us, it will be incidental to our main purpose. What is there in your letter, Gentleman Jim?”

“Nothing, except that I am to keep the deed and hand it over to you after you have passed the three days and nights in the mine, providing you are alive and able to claim it.” An apprehensive look crossed the gambler’s face. “It’s a gift with a string to it--and I’d give a hundred, this minute, if I knew exactly what the string was.”

“Well, Gentleman Jim,” said the scout, rising. “I give notice that to-night, at six o’clock, I and some of my pards will go down into the Forty Thieves. This is Monday, and I shall not come to the surface until Thursday afternoon, unless the capture of Captain Lawless makes it necessary.”

Silence followed the scout’s words. It was broken by a long-drawn-out and mournful cry, coming from no one knew where:

“_Wa-hoo-ha-a-a! Pa-e-has-ka go to Forty Thieves, Pa-e-has-ka die! Nuzhee Mona! Nuzhee Mona!_”

It was a soft voice, as it might have been the voice of a sighing spirit, and the echoes breathed sobbingly through the room.

While Buffalo Bill, Dell Dauntless and the others stared at each other in bewilderment, Little Cayuse flung himself into the center of the room. Crouching there, and peering about him with eyes in which there was an unearthly light, the boy breathed huskily:

“_Geegoho! Geegoho!_” Then he listened, rapt, entranced erect, and rigid as a statue.

“_Nuzhee Mona! Nuzhee Mona!_” breathed the voice, the last word dying away in a whisper.

Little Cayuse flung his hands to his face, groaned aloud, then rushed to the door, tore it open--and vanished.

It would be hard to describe the effect which this bit of by-play had on those in the room. As a matter of fact, the effect of it on each one was different. All were surprised, and more or less puzzled, but each, according to his nature, gave the event a different construction.

Nomad, superstitious and imaginative, read in the sighing voice an instrumentality that was not human. It was a warning from a class of spirits to whom the old trapper referred as the “whiskizoos.”

Dell was astounded and apprehensive, Wild Bill frankly puzzled, Gentleman Jim grimly incredulous, and the scout began looking about him in a matter-of-fact way to locate the place from which the voice emanated.

“Waugh!” growled Nomad; “me no like um. All same whiskizoo. Better think et over, Buffler. Et won’t do ter go agin’ a warnin’ from ther spirit-land.”

“_Where_ did it come from?” murmured Dell. “What was it?”

“There was flesh and blood back of it,” averred the scout. “Spirits have never mixed up in my affairs, and they’re not going to begin it now.”

He strode to a door in one corner of the room, and threw it open. The door led into a closet, but the closet was empty.

“I wouldn’t put it past Lawless any to set some one on to do a thing like that,” remarked Wild Bill, with a low laugh. “He’s trying your nerve, Cody.”

“What’s under the floor, Gentleman Jim?” inquired the scout, striking the floor with his heel.

“A basement,” answered the gambler, “where the proprietor of the Alcazar stores his ‘wet’ goods.”

“And what’s above?” went on the scout, lifting his eyes.

“Cedar rafters and a mud roof.”

“Let’s go down to the basement.”

The scout and the gambler left the room, descended into the cellar by a narrow flight of stairs leading from the main part of the Alcazar, and found nothing but kegs and casks.

“Whoever spoke,” said Buffalo Bill, “spoke from here. Mere clap-trap for the sake of scaring me out.”

“Lawless never had it done,” said Gentleman Jim. “Your pard, Wild Bill, is wide of his trail if he thinks that.”

“No,” mused the scout, “Lawless wasn’t back of it. He seems too anxious to get me into the Forty Thieves to try to make me turn back.”

“It was a woman’s voice.”

“I’m thinking of that.”

When the scout and the gambler returned to the latter’s room, it was unnecessary for them to repeat to Wild Bill, Nomad, and Dell the result of their investigations. Every word spoken by Buffalo Bill and Gentleman Jim while in the basement had been distinctly heard by those overhead.

“That proves,” declared the scout, “that the speaker was in the basement.”

“What did the speaker mean by those words, _Nuzhee Mona_?” asked Dell.

“Give it up, Dell,” replied Buffalo Bill. “Mere gibberish, perhaps, although they suggest the Omaha tongue, to me.”

“To me, too,” put in Wild Bill.

“And what was that Little Cayuse said? And why did he groan and run away?”

“The boy’s an Indian,” said the scout, “and his blood crops out in queer ways, now and then. I don’t know what he said, nor why he ran away. But he won’t stay away for long, we may be sure of that.”

“He knows,” said Nomad, “thet Injun spooks was speakin’. Et skeered him, an’ he lit out.”

“Then it’s the first time,” said the scout derisively, “we ever saw the boy scared. But we can’t lose time here, pards. We must cut for the Lucky Strike and get our share of that red maverick that came so near proving the death of Blake. After dinner there will be some preparations to make, and by six o’clock, sharp, we must be down in the shaft and level of the Forty Thieves.”

“Buffalo Bill’s mine!” laughed Wild Bill. “Come on, Cody. That three days’ stunt looks easy to me, in spite of our ‘spirit-warning’ and the evil intentions of Captain Lawless.”

“I try to be square,” said Gentleman Jim, as he followed the scout and his pards to the front of the Alcazar, “and if you stay in the Forty Thieves for three consecutive days and nights you get the deed. If you don’t, Buffalo Bill, I shall have to burn it up.”

“Don’t be too quick with your burning, that’s all,” returned the scout grimly.

“I’ll give you plenty of time to come and claim the property.”

“Dollars to doughnuts,” remarked Hickok lightly, “the scout will exchange Lawless for the deed. I’ve a feeling that that whelp is due for a kibosh, and that Cody is going to give it to him.”

“I hope so, with all my heart,” said Gentleman Jim fervently.

As the scout, the trapper, Wild Bill, and Dell passed along the camp-street toward the Lucky Strike Hotel, Little Cayuse hastened around the rear of the Dew Drop resort and joined them.

The boy’s face was heavy with foreboding.

“Where have you been, Cayuse?” asked the scout sharply.

“Try find um spirit,” answered Cayuse gravely. “Find out, mebbyso, how we save um Pa-e-has-ka.”

Wild Bill gave a scoffing laugh, and Cayuse stared at him rebukingly.

“We no find out how to save um Pa-e-has-ka,” said the boy, with great gravity, “then Pa-e-has-ka die.”

He whirled on the scout.

“You still think you go to mine, stay there for three sleeps?” he demanded.

“Certainly I’m going.”

A look of woeful resignation crossed the boy’s face.

“Pa-e-has-ka die,” said he, “then Little Cayuse die, too--but not till Little Cayuse take Lawless’ scalp.”

All this talk of the Piute’s rendered Nick Nomad mighty uneasy.

“What was et thet ther spirit said, Cayuse?” asked the trapper.

Cayuse shook his head and did not answer.

“What was et ye said ter ther spirit?”

Still Cayuse kept a still tongue.

“I don’t like ther outlook, Buffler,” said Nomad, with a gruesome shake of his shaggy head. “Ther kid ’u’d tork, only he hates ter gloom us up.”

“There are times, old pard,” said the scout, “when you seem to be shy even an average amount of horse-sense. If you continue to talk and act as though you were locoed, I won’t take you to the mine at all, but will leave you in Sun Dance.”

Nomad, at that, pulled himself together and tried to look as though he wasn’t in the least apprehensive.

“And the same with Little Cayuse,” continued the scout, turning to the Piute. “You’ve got to stop this foolishness. Buffalo Bill’s pards ought to be level-headed, and not go off the jump every time they hear or see something they can’t understand. We’re out after Lawless, just remember that, and certainly we’re sharp enough to match our wits against his. If we’re not, then Lawless and his gang may win out against us, and welcome.”

Cayuse shut his teeth hard and walked on ahead. Nomad, in a feeble attempt to dispel his fears, began to whistle softly.

As they came within sight of the Lucky Strike Hotel, they saw three men grouped about the door. One of the men was the fat proprietor, Spangler, and the other two were Hank Tenny and Lonesome Pete.

“What’s that outfit looking at?” queried Wild Bill.

“Something on the door,” returned Dauntless Dell. “They appear to be excited.”

“Must be somethin’ mighty important,” put in Nomad, “ter drag thet fat boy out o’ his two chairs. Spang never moves from them chairs except ter foller ther shade, er eat his meals, er go ter bed. But somethin’s got him goin’ now, thet’s shore.”

“What’s the matter?” called the scout, when he and his pards came close to the front of the hotel.

“We’re tryin’ ter figger it out, Buffalo Bill,” wheezed Spangler. “Jest take a look at this an’ tell me what it means--if ye kin.”

Spangler, Pete, and Tenny moved away from the door. Pinned to the wood by a crude dagger was a ragged square of birch bark. On the bark, where the words had evidently been traced with the dagger’s point, was this, in printed characters:

_Nuzhee Mona._

Just that, and nothing more. Nomad and Little Cayuse stared, then turned away. Buffalo Bill and Wild Bill laughed, and the former tore away the piece of bark and cast it from him with a gesture of contempt; then, jerking the dagger from the wood, he carried it on into the hotel. Hickok followed, a jesting remark on his lips. Dell trailed after Hickok, but it was plain she could not dismiss the matter in the same offhand way that he had done.