CHAPTER XVIII.

THE ROUND-UP AT SPANGLER’S.

Wah-coo-tah was taken to the Lucky Strike Hotel and placed in Dell’s room; the room from which, one night not long before, she had taken French leave. Nomad stopped at the Alcazar and summoned Gentleman Jim.

Cayuse, Pete, Blake, and Tenny took care of the horses, and Buffalo Bill, Wild Bill, and Dell sat in Dell’s room and waited anxiously for Gentleman Jim to come.

When he arrived, which he did in a very few moments, he carried a professional-looking grip.

“Your three days are not up yet, Buffalo Bill,” said Gentleman Jim, with a smile.

“I’m going back to the Forty Thieves to-morrow,” returned the scout, “to finish them up. I didn’t know you were a doctor, Gentleman Jim.”

Something of a sad expression crossed the gambler’s face.

“I used to be a doctor back East,” he answered, and turned to the cot where Wah-coo-tah was lying.

The scout knew, as did every one else in Sun Dance Cañon, that Gentleman Jim’s past held a story--and not a particularly pleasant story, either. But just what that story was no living man had ever heard from the gambler’s lips.

Gentleman Jim’s soft, white hands moved about Wah-coo-tah with almost womanly tenderness. After he had made a brief examination, he opened the satchel and took out an instrument-case.

“I shall hurt you a little, Wah-coo-tah,” said he, “but it can’t be helped. You can bear it without taking anything to smother the pain?”

“Ai,” said the girl; “me used to pain; me stand um, all right.”

For two or three minutes the probe was deep in the wound, and all the time Dell held Wah-coo-tah’s hands and soothed her with gentle words. At last Gentleman Jim straightened up and dropped a small piece of lead on the table.

“That is what did the harm,” said he. “Now we will dress and bandage the wound, and I think Wah-coo-tah will get along well enough.”

“There is no danger?” asked Dell.

“There is always danger of blood-poisoning in a case like this, but I think in Wah-coo-tah’s case the danger is quite remote.”

Wing Hi was pounding his supper-gong when Gentleman Jim finally finished his work, and left the Lucky Strike.

“She’ll get well, Buffalo Bill,” he said to the scout, as he passed through the office.

“I’m glad of that,” answered the scout. “I’m going to get a deed to that mine, Jim, and turn it over to Wah-coo-tah.”

“That would be like you, Cody,” the gambler said.

This favorable news concerning Wah-coo-tah put the scout and his pards into an agreeable mood, and when they “sat in” at their table, in the dining-room, that evening, they were in the best of spirits. Dell was not with them, as she preferred to take her supper in her room, where she could be with Wah-coo-tah; but Lonesome Pete, Hank Tenny, and Henry Blake were of the supper-party, and the fresh meat was heartily enjoyed.

As on another occasion when the scout and his pards had returned from a conflict with Captain Lawless and his followers, the meal was made the occasion for an exchange of experiences, to the end that the tangled skein of events might be set right in everybody’s mind, and thoroughly understood.

Buffalo Bill led off with the contents of the envelope Blake had brought into camp in such an unusual manner, following it up with the talk in the Alcazar, and the voice of warning that had come from the cellar; then he followed the recital down to where he and his pards had reached the mine, and he and Wild Bill and Nomad had gone into the shaft, leaving Cayuse and Dell to take care of the horses.

“You were the first one to disappear, Nick,” the scout said, at this point, “so you had better tell us what happened to you.”

“Waal, et happened so pesky quick thet what I recomember is sort o’ hazy,” said the old trapper. “You had jest been through ther level, Buffler, an’ ye said thar wasn’t any one down thar but us. When I drapped ther truck I had kerried from ther shaft, I moseyed off toward ther breast o’ ther level with my candle. I hadn’t gone fur, afore a hole opened up in ther wall alongside o’ me, an’ a light shot out thet made my candle look like er glow-worm alongside of er locomotive head-light. Nacherly I let off er yell; then I was grabbed afore I could use my fists er guns, an’ snaked inter another part o’ ther mine.

“Mebby I wasn’t surprised when Lawless looked down at me an’ told er couple o’ Cheyennes how ter tie me so’st I couldn’t move. Arter I was in thet condition I was snaked off ter a place whar the level was wider, and whar thar was some hosses, an’ left thar ter commune with myself.

“Next thing I knowed Wild Bill was dragged alongside er me ter keep me comp’ny. He told o’ the fight you an’ him had had, an’ how he didn’t know but mebby you mout be killed, Buffler. While he was sayin’ thet, Lawless yelps out from somewhere thet ye wasn’t killed, but thet ye was goin’ ter be some time along erbout sunrise.

“Arter thet not er bloomin’ thing happened ter Wild Bill an’ me till we was loaded onter cayuses behind them Cheyenne bucks, an’ kerried up ter ther top o’ ther gulch wall. I knowed them onnery outlaws had er mortgage on my skelp, an’ I was expectin’ ’em ter foreclose any ole minit, so ye kin imagine how surprised I was when Pete, Tenny, Blake, an’ Cayuse leaped out from behind the rocks an’ purceeded ter make things interestin’. I reckon thet’s all o’ et, so fur’s I’m mixed in ther scrimmage.”

“And you’ve told my part of it, Nick,” said Wild Bill. “Knocked down in that fight Buffalo Bill and I was having, my wits took a vacation. When they got back again I was alongside of you, in the other part of the mine.”

“Now it’s up to you, Cayuse,” said the scout. “We’ll get all these fag-ends bunched together, and then I’ll finish off with what happened to Dell and me.”

Cayuse was more gifted with the hand-talk than he was with English. He was extremely brief, but his information--concerning, as it did, the letting loose of the waters of the lake--was most valuable.

“He don’t star hisself none,” commented Hank Tenny, “but I bet ye he was a hull lot of a hero, all the same.”

“He always is,” said the scout.

“Me lose um gun,” mourned Little Cayuse.

“I’ll get you another, boy, silver-mounted,” said the scout, and Cayuse’s eyes sparkled.

The scout now plunged into the run of events, and wound up the recital.

“Ain’t et astonishin’ what things kin happen ter a feller?” remarked Nomad, who had been neglecting his meal to listen, open-mouthed, to his pard’s yarn; “an’ ain’t Buffler ther boy ter git things ter comin’ his way, right in ther nick? Jest s’posin’, now, anythin’ had gone wrong with thet thar stone curtain at ther top o’ ther shaft. Why, ef thar had, us fellers could hev gone fishin’ in ther Forty Thieves.”

“Fishing for _me_,” added the scout grimly.

“By gorry, yes!” exclaimed Wild Bill. “But the rock curtain worked like a charm, the flood covered the ore-dump, and rippled over the top of the curtain, and Buffalo Bill, Dell, and Wah-coo-tah were as dry as if they had been here in the Lucky Strike. A little thing now and then makes a heap of difference in the run of events.”

“It was a lucky thing for Cayuse,” spoke up the scout, “that Tenny, Blake, and Pete took it into their heads to ride down the gulch. If they hadn’t---- Well, I don’t like to think of what might have happened if Tenny’s rope hadn’t helped Cayuse into the mouth of the gully. I don’t know how Buffalo Bill & Company could get along and do a successful business without their Piute pard.”

“Ugh,” grunted Cayuse; “Pa-e-has-ka make Piute boy feel like squaw with string of glass beads.”

“Ye’re a desarvin’ little feller,” said Hank Tenny, “an’ I’d be tickled ter death ef I had ye fer a pard o’ mine. But you must like the scout er heap er ye wouldn’t hev tried ter tag arter him on the long trail.”

Cayuse bent his head and made no reply to this. Nor did the scout make any comment. What each felt was locked in his own breast.

* * * * *

True to his word, on the following day the scout, Wild Bill, and Nomad returned to the mine and hived themselves up in it for three days and nights. They beguiled the time with “seven-up.”

Nothing went wrong with them at all, and Dell rode out every day to report how Wah-coo-tah was getting along. The Indian girl continued steadily to improve.

While at the mine the mechanism that worked the “rock curtain” was examined by the pards and found to be very cleverly contrived. They all decided that it had been placed in the shaft for the purpose the scout had already supposed, viz: to keep out of the mine any floods that might come down from above.

When the scout and his pards returned to Sun Dance, the scout took his deed, made out another in the name of Wah-coo-tah Lawless, and sent both to Montegordo to be recorded. He did this with the entire approval of all his pards.

“And now,” said Wild Bill, when the deed had been duly executed, recorded, and delivered, “we still have Lawless to find and lay by the heels.”

“We can’t make any plans about that,” answered the scout, “until we learn whether Lawless got over the effects of Blake’s bullet or not.”

“That’s so,” agreed Wild Bill, “but I’m hoping for the best.”

Just what he meant by “the best” he did not explain.