Meantime the Texan, with a small field-glass in his hand, mounted the tree, and from a perch on its uppermost limbs, scanned the prairie in all directions, but most often in the direction from which they had come.
Nothing was in sight but wild game, scattered here and there, and he soon came down and prepared to take a rest on his own account.
"They'll not pass till afternoon," he muttered, "and I may as well rest a few hours while I can in peace and safety."
He took a long and curious look at the form of his sleeping traveling companion, and a strange smile flitted over his face, as he muttered:
"A mystery, but I can solve it."
* * *
CHAPTER XI.
IN THE WILDS.
If ever a man was astonished, when he responded to that after midnight signal at the mouth of Dead Man's Hollow, it was the outlaw, Persimmon Bill. He came from his place of concealment expecting to meet the Texan with news, and found instead Addie Neidic, and with her, on a pack horse, all the wealth and apparel she had in the world.
"Addie, love, what does this mean?" he cried, as she sprang from the horse and threw herself into his arms.
"It means this, Bill. I have come to stay with you, go where you go, live as you live, and die where you die!"
"Addie, dearest, did I not tell you to wait till I could give you a home in peace and quietness!"
"Yes, Bill, but there were those that would not let me wait. To-night, had it not been for thy Texan friend, most likely I would have been murdered by a mob of drunken ruffians led on by Wild Bill. Warned in time, I escaped with all that I had worth saving, except my house and furniture. Those they burned; I saw the blaze from my stable, where I went to get my horses to come to you."
"By all that's fiendish, this is more than I can bear! I'll ride in with my Sioux and burn the cursed town!"
"No, Bill; for my sake keep cool and hear me. I am glad it is done. I was wretched and lonely there–how lonely no words may tell. I was in constant anxiety on your account. I trembled daily, hourly, lest I should hear of your death or capture. Now I shall be with you, know of your safety, or if you are in peril, share the danger with you."
"But, Addie, you can never endure the privations and the fatigue of such a life as I must lead at present. Soon I must be on a bloody war-path. We will have regular troops to meet, great battles to fight."
"And it will be my glory and pride to be with you in all your perils–to show your red allies what a pale-faced woman dares and can do for him whom she loves."
"Dearest, I see not how it can be helped. But I grieve to see you suffer."
"Do not grieve, my love, while my face is bright with smiles. Do not let your heart be heavy while mine is full of joy. Think but this–I am thine until death. We will never part while life thrills our veins. Your triumphs shall be mine; I will glory in your courage, and in your enterprise. I have arms and well know their use. No warrior in all your following can ride better than I. That I am fearless I really believe, for twice inside of ten hours have I defied Wild Bill in his anger, and laughed when his hand was on his pistol. But take me to your camp. I am tired, and the night air is chilly; and take care of the pack horse. My silver and over one hundred thousand dollars in money is on his back, and what clothing I shall need for a time."
"You bring a rich dowry, Addie, but your love is worth more than all the treasures the world could show. Come, darling, I will take you as the most precious gift a wild, bad man ever received."
"You are not bad, Bill. You are my hero and my love!"
Bill could only press his answer on her lips, and then with the bridle of her horses in his hand, and her arm linked in his, he walked back up the winding bed of the ravine for near a quarter of a mile.
Then he emerged into an open space where there were full a hundred Indian ponies staked out, with their owners lying in groups about near small smoldering camp-fires. A few only were on guard, and these on seeing their white chief appear paid no apparent attention to the companion, though they doubtless saw her. It is the Indian's nature to be stoical and never to manifest surprise, no matter what occurs.
Inside the line where the ponies were staked was a small brush house, and in front of this Bill halted with his led horses, with his own hands unsaddled one and unpacked the other, leaving packs and saddles in front of the house.
Well he knew they were as safe there as they would have been behind bolts and bars in the settlements–even more safe.
"Come in, my love," he said. "The Sioux will care for the horses. Come in and receive the best a fond heart can give in the way of shelter and comfort."
"It is all I ask," she murmured, as with him she entered the "Outlaw's Home."
* * *
CHAPTER XII.
ON THE TRAIL.
It was high noon when the young Texan woke up and when he rose Pond still lay sleeping. The former laughed lightly, as he rose and bathed his face in the limpid water, for the beard of the sleeper had got all awry, showing that it was false.
"No need for a disguise here," said the Texan. "But let him keep it up. When the time comes I'll read him a lesson."
Cutting some antelope stakes, the Texan built up a smokeless fire, and had them nicely broiled when Willie Pond woke up.
"Mercy! how I have slept!" he said, as he looked at the sun, already fast declining toward the west.
"You are not used to passing sleepless nights," said the Texan. "When we are fairly launched into the Indian country you may not sleep so sound. Take hold and eat. A hearty eater on the plains generally stands travel best. To-morrow, it is likely, we'll have a fifty-mile ride or more, if those Black Hillers get sobered down to their work. They'll do well if they make their twenty to-day."
Pond went and bathed his face and hands in the limpid water before eating, and as he expressed it, "rubbed the sleep" out of his eyes; then he went at the toothsome steak with appetite not at all impaired by the pure open air he was breathing.
The meal, taken with comfort and deliberation, occupied a half hour or more, and as there were no dishes to wash, "clearing up things" only consisting in tossing the bones out of the way, wiping their knives on a bunch of grass, scouring them with a plunge or two in the dry sand, they were all ready for next meal-time.
"Your horse hears something, so does mine," said the Texan, pointing to the animals, which suddenly stopped feeding, and with their ears pricked forward, looked off to the east-ward.
"I can see nothing. What can alarm them!" said Pond.
"They hear the tramp of the Black Hills party, I think. Horses have far better hearing than we have, and will feel a jar of the ground that would not attract our attention. I want no better sentinel than my mustang, and your Black Hawk seems to take to the watch by instinct. I will go up on my look-out post and see if anything is in sight."
Slinging the strap of his field-glass over his shoulder, the Texan hurriedly climbed up the tree. Seated among the top-most limbs, he adjusted his glass and looked away to the northeast.
"There they are!" he cried.
"Who? What?" exclaimed Pond, rather nervously.
"The Black Hillers, struggling along mighty careless. Their route covers half a mile in length; when in good marching order it should not cover a hundred yards, with scouts in the rear, front, and on both flanks, at twice the distance. That is the way we travel in Texas."
"Wild Bill has been a scout so long I should think he would know all about it," said Pond.
"A heap them scouts know who travel with Uncle Sam's troop's!" said the Texan, in a tone of contempt. "Let them ride with a gang of Texan Rangers a few months and they'd learn something. Your troops can't move, or stop to water, without sounding their bugles to tell the Indians where they are. In the morning, all day, and at night, it is toot, toot with their infernal horns, and the reds know just where to find 'em. One of our Texan Ranger bands will travel a hundred miles and you'll not hear noise enough to wake a coyote from them all. These
Black Hillers travel slow to-day. They're sore-headed from their spree, I reckon."
"They deserve to be. Drunkenness always punishes the drunkard. I have no pity for them."
"Can you see any sign of them from where you stand?" asked the Texan.
Pond looked carefully off in the direction the other pointed, and replied:
"No. They do not even raise dust."
"Then we are safe here from observation. They go too slow to make dust, and they're moving over grass any way. It will be dark before they reach their camping-ground. But to make the next, which is full fifty miles away, they'll have to start earlier. Ah! what does that mean?"
"What startles you?"
"Nothing startles me, but a couple of men from that party have dashed out from the line at a gallop, and they ride this way."
"Heaven! I hope Bill–Wild Bill–is not one of them!" cried Pond, greatly excited. "Are you sure they are coming here?"
"Riding this way does not assume that they're coming here!" said the Texan, coolly. "They may have flanked off to look for some fresh meat. Yes, that is it," he added. "They bear up to the north now; they want to go ahead of the party so as to kill something fresh for supper. Captain Jack kept sober when all the rest were drinking last night, and I'll wager he is one of the hunters, and most likely Sam Chichester is the other. We're safe from observation, Mr. Pond, so don't get nervous. We'll not see Wild Bill to-day."
Pond smiled, but there was a tremor about him that showed he was easy to take alarm and hard to get over it.
The Texan came down from the tree and busied himself in gathering some dry fuel–small sticks which would make a quick hot blaze and little or no smoke. Then he cut off some long thin flakes of antelope flesh from the saddle hanging on the tree, and half cooked, half dried it.
"Meat may be a little unhandy to get in the rear of that straggling band," he said. "If we have a little on hand, it will do no hurt."
"You are thoughtful," said Pond. "I would make a poor manager, I fear, on the plains. I should forget everything until it was needed."
"You are not too old to learn," said the Texan, laughing.
"Excuse my asking the question, but have you long been acquainted with that strange and beautiful woman, Addie Neidic?"
"Not very long, myself. But I had a brother who knew her very well, and loved her almost to madness, She was his true friend, but she did not love him."
"Is he living now?"
"Living? No! If ever you meet Wild Bill–but no, it is my secret. Ask me no more about him."
Every word just spoken flew from the Texan's lips like sheets of fire; his eyes flashed and his face flushed, while his form trembled from head to foot.
"Forgive me! I did not mean to wound your feelings!" said Pond, moved by the excitement of the other.
"No matter; I know you didn't. No matter. It will all come right one of these days. I wish my heart was stone!"
Pond was silent, for he saw the Texan's eyes fill with tears, and he seemed to know that nothing which he could say could soften a grief so deeply felt.
The Texan was the first to speak.
"Addie Neidic is a strange, but a noble girl," he said. "Her father was a rough sporting man, but her mother was a lady born and bred. The mother lived long enough to educate Addie in her own ways, but she died just as Addie was budding into beauty. Addie met her lover when he was a soldier at Fort Russell, near Cheyenne. After he was driven to desertion by cruelty and injustice, she met him from time to time, and when her father died, leaving her all his fortune, she moved up to Laramie. I think I know now the reason why–she could, meet him more often."
"You said that he was an outlaw."
"Yes; when he deserted he killed the two sentinels who were on guard over him, then killed a mounted officer and rode away on his horse. He was hunted for by whole companies as fast as they could be mounted, but he could not be taken. But after that, if a soldier or an officer rode alone a mile or more from the post, he seldom returned, but his body told that Persimmon Bill, the 'Soldier Killer,' as he was called, still lived around. Wild Bill has done bloody work–cruel work in his time, but Persimmon Bill has killed ten men to his one."
"It is strange that an intelligent woman like Addie Neidic should love such a man."
"No–he is both a martyr and a hero in her eyes. A more stately form, a nobler face, never met favor in the eyes of woman. To his foes fierce and relentless, to her he is gentle and kind. She will never meet aught but tenderness at his hands."
"I wish I could have seen him."
"You may yet see him, Mr. Pond. He travels the plains as free as the antelopes which bound from ridge to ridge. Adopted by the Sioux nation, known to them as the 'White Elk,' he has become a great chief, and their young braves follow in his lead with a confidence which makes them better than the solders sent to subdue them."
* * *
CHAPTER XIII.
THE BLACK HILLERS EN ROUTE.
The young Texan had judged rightly when he conjectured that it was Sam Chichester and Captain Jack that had ridden out from the straggling column of the Black Hillers, as he saw from his eyrie in the tree.
They had two objects in doing so. The ostensible object was to reach the camping-ground first with some game for supper, but another was to converse, unheard by the others, on the probable dangers of the trip, and means to meet and overcome such dangers.
"There is no doubt the Sioux are on the war-path," said Chichester to Captain Jack, as they rode on side by side.
"None in the world. They've taken a hundred scalps or more already on the Black Hills route. The troops have been ordered to move up the Missouri and Yellowstone, and that will make them worse than ever. We'll be lucky if we get through without a brush. That was a mean thing, the burning out of that Neidic girl last night, wasn't it?"
"Yes, Crawford, and if Persimmon Bill ever comes across Wild Bill, his goose is cooked! Mark that. There is not a surer shot, or a deadlier foe on earth then Persimmon Bill. He has defied the whole border for the past three years–ridden right into a military post and shot men down, and got away without a scratch. They say he has been adopted by the Sioux, and if he has, with such backing he'll do more mischief than ever."
"I don't believe Bill would have injured the woman had he been sober. It was a mean thing to do any way, and I'm sorry any of our party had a hand in it."
"So am I. But look, Jack, you can see tree-tops ahead. That is the timber on Twenty-mile Creek. There we camp. We'll spread a little here, and the one who sees a fat elk first will drop him. We'll keep within sight and hearing of each other, and if one fires the other will close on him."
"All right, Sam."
And the brave young scout, all the better for being ever temperate and steady, gently diverged to the right, while Chichester bore off to the left.
Game in the shape of prairie hens rose right and left as they rode on, and every little while a band of antelopes, taking the alarm, would be seen bounding over the sandy ridges, while an elk farther off startled by the antelope, would take fright and trot off in style.
The two hunters were now nearing the timber, and they rode more slowly and with greater caution.
Suddenly, as Chichester rose over a small ridge, he came upon a band of a dozen or more noble elk, which trotted swiftly off to the right, where Captain Jack, seeing them coming, had sprung from his horse and crouched low on the ridge.
Chichester saw his movement, and lowered the rifle which he had raised for a flying shot, for he knew by their course the elk would go so close to Crawford that he could take his pick among them and make a sure shot.
The result justified his movement, for the noble animals, seeing only a riderless horse, scented no danger, and kept on until they were within easy pistol-shot of the experienced hunter.
Crack went his rifle, and the largest, fattest elk of the band gave one mighty bound and fell, while the rest bounded away in another course, fully alarmed at the report
of a gun so close and its effects so deadly to the leader of the band.
"You've got as nice a bit of meat here as ever was cut up," cried Chichester to Captain Jack, as he came in at a gallop, while Crawford was cutting the throat of the huge elk. "The boys will have enough to choke on when we get to camp."
"I reckon they'll not growl over this," said Jack, laughing. "I never had an easier shot. They came down from your wind, and never saw me till I raised with a bead on this one's heart."
The two hunters had their meat all cut up and in condition for packing to camp when the column came up.
One hour later, just as the sun began to dip beyond the trees on the creek side, the party went into camp, and soon, over huge and carelessly built camp-fires, slices of elk steak and elk ribs were roasting and steaming in a most appetizing way.
The party were hungry, and the hungriest among them were those who had drank the hardest the night before, for till now they had not been able to eat. But the day's travel had worked some of the poison rum out of them, and their empty stomachs craved something good and substantial, and they had it in the fresh, juicy elk meat.
It was a hard and unruly crowd to manage on the start. Chichester found it difficult to get men to act as sentinels, for they mostly declared that there was no danger of Indians and no need to set guards.
Little did they dream that even then, within three hours' ride, or even less, there were enough blood-thirsty Sioux to meet them in fair fight, and defeat them, too.
Only by standing a watch himself and putting Crawford on for the most dangerous hour, that of approaching dawn, did Captain Chichester manage to have his first night's camp properly guarded.
Wild Bill, gloomy and morose, said he didn't "care a cuss" if all the Indians of the Sioux nation pitched upon them. He knew his time was close at hand, and what did it matter to him whether a red wore his scalp at his belt or some white man gloried in having wiped him out.
But the night passed without disturbance, and a very early start was made next morning.
Wild Bills Last Trail Page 5