after bill harkness left mainwaring, to go up where the firing was now pretty regular, the latter thought he would look around as far as the bounds named by harkness would allow.
so, after taking a long, earnest look at may, who sat with gertrude near the fire listening to some droll talk from ben which kept lize roaring with laughter, the young rancher strolled back toward the avenue, or chamber, which he was told he could use for a promenade of a hundred yards, if he liked.
it was dimly lighted by the distant fires and torches, but the floor was level, so he walked on and thought.
thought about home—his good mother, his dear brothers, and the fair sisters who might never see him more, and then, walking back where he could see may with the firelight at play upon her beautiful face, he thought he would risk his very life to get her out of the hands of these ruffians.
suddenly he became aware that he was approaching a man; and thinking it might be the sentinel who stood at the death line, he began to retreat.
“halt! come here, i want to talk with you!” said the man, whoever he was, seen indistinctly in the gloom.
mainwaring recognized the voice. it was that of the man who had spoken to harkness, asking who his prisoners were, and what he intended to do with them.
so he made up his mind quickly, as he knew this man was well armed, that it would be folly to refuse his invitation to advance.
he came forward until he was close to the man, who then said, in a low tone:
“stop—you’re near enough. speak low, and answer my questions.”
mainwaring halted, for he heard the click of a pistol as it was cocked. he thought it was rather unnecessary, since he was unarmed, but he made no comments.
“bill harkness means to hold you to ransom, don’t he?” asked this man.
“i think i heard him tell you so!” said mainwaring.
“ah—you’ve sharp eyes in the dark. i didn’t think you’d know me. but it don’t make any odds. how much are you going to give him?”
mainwaring hesitated. he did not know if it were prudent to tell this man. if harkness knew it, it might make him a bitter enemy.
“come, speak out! it may be the best thing you ever did for yourself. you needn’t fear my telling—i want to know for my own satisfaction, and because”—the stranger spoke in a whisper now—“it might better your bargain.”
mainwaring did not hesitate any longer. he felt in a moment that there was a man before him whose treachery might be bought.
“one hundred thousand dollars,” said mainwaring promptly, “for the freedom of those two girls, myself, and the negro ben!”
“whew! bill lied to me! you’ve got the spots, sure?”
“if you mean the money, yes. i’ve got it where, for this purpose, i can command it.”
“you could have it paid into a man’s hand, in the border settlements, wherever he named, and you went quiet, so nobody but him would be the wiser?”
“yes, i have no doubt of it.”
“stranger—i can do you a turn, and i can do it twenty-five thousand cheaper than he. i can get you out of here—and the gals, too, for i know a secret passage. there’s only bill and me and one other man knows of it, and that other man is about past knowing anything—for ’twas him they brought in dying just now. he is shot through the throat, and he can’t speak!”
“can i trust you?” asked mainwaring eagerly.
“you’ve got to, you can’t help yourself. and i’ve got to trust you, too, for the captain told me he cleaned you out of all you had on you. but i looked in your eye out there by the fire, and there isn’t any lie in it.”
“thank you.”
“i’m not talkin’ for thanks—i’m talkin for money! i’m sick of this kind of life. i haven’t been treated fair, anyway. they made me captain and then broke me, because i wouldn’t go down to the railroad and run trains off. but that isn’t business. swear that if i’ll get you clear, you’ll give me seventy-five thousand, good money.”
“i will, on my sacred honor and by my soul!”
“well, i s’pose that is as good as an oath. the next thing is the plan to get you out.”
“you understand the girls and the man ben are in the bargain?”
“yes—and there’s the trouble. i could get you off from here in twenty minutes. but that lize is as sharp as a ferret. bill knew what he was about when he told her to look out for ’em.”
“i will not move without them.”
“there’s but one other way—and i hate to do that. but there isn’t one in a hundred of them that wouldn’t if they had the chance.”
“wouldn’t do what?” asked mainwaring.
“hush! don’t speak so loud! if ’twas known we[198] were talking here and about this, we’d be burned alive. what i was thinking of was the letting in of your friends in here. if i did, our fellows would have to git, or go under. and then you and the girls would be safe enough, so safe that if you wanted to go back on me i might whistle for my money!”
“i have sworn that if you help me and the other three away, you shall have it!”
“i might get killed, as i surely would, if bill harkness could get one sight of me, and then i’d be where money wouldn’t do me any good. i want to get out in the world and live honest once more—and i can’t do that without money.”
“why not go out, have an interview with buffalo bill, show him how to get in, and then stay where you will be safe?” urged mainwaring.
“i’ll be as safe here as there, if the party was in, and safer, too. it’ll never do for bill harkness to know, while he lives, that i’ve done this. he must be snuffed out first thing. have you anything to write with?”
“yes—a pencil and memorandum book.”
“then write a note to buffalo bill, telling him what i will do and what he can do. i’ll get it to him. after that, you go and sit down where he told you to sleep—keep cool and be ready to help yourself when others are ready to help you. here is a revolver. keep it out of sight till you need it.”
“i will,” said mainwaring, rejoiced once more to have a weapon in his hand.
“and be quiet. don’t let harkness, should he come down from above, see that you’ve got a bit of hope. he is keen, and if he suspects anything the whole job is gone up; for he could block the secret passage just as easy as he did the pass out there.”
“do not fear for my betrayal by look or word. i will be apparently asleep, should you return, but wide awake enough to do any duty which comes up.”
“all right. trust me now, as i trust you.”
the man took the hasty note which mainwaring wrote to buffalo bill, and in another moment he was out of sight.
mainwaring, placing the treasured revolver in his pocket, now went back to the place where a heap of blankets had been pointed out by harkness as his sleeping place.
here he sat down, and drawing his hat well over his brows, watched, as calmly as he could, the faces of the girls, the comic looks of ben, and the mingled expressions that came and went on the face of the creature lize—for it would be an insult to the sex to call her woman.
and he waited—for what, he could hardly tell. if the man, whose name, even, he did not know, for it was so unimportant he had not asked it, was faithful to his promise in a little while his friends would be there, able and willing to rescue and protect those who had become the objects of his dearest interest.
he had not known may long, yet his whole heart had gone out to her, and he felt as if he would rather die with her there than live and leave her behind.
he could see her beautiful, intelligent face, with the flickering light of the fire now making it a glory and then leaving it in shadow; her eyes, despite all this trouble, so full of womanly expression, telling that no matter where the soul is its mirror is the eye—and he felt as if he could worship her.
a noise from men advancing attracted the attention of mainwaring now, and he turned, to see bill harkness coming toward him, leaning on the arm of one of his men.
“i’ve been hit, stranger, and have lost a little blood,[200] but it is nothing bad, only a flesh wound. i stayed too long before i had it seen to,” said the robber, as he sank down near mainwaring on a pile of buffalo robes.
then turning to the man who came with him he said:
“hunt up dolph lowell, and tell the cuss to go up above and watch them fellows, or some of ’em will climb the cliff. they’re the sharpest crowd i’ve ever had dealin’s with. there’s one fellow there that shoots the closest i ever knew.”
“wild bill, maybe, is the man you mean,” said mainwaring. “he is one of the best shots on the plains.”
“’twas him that hit me, and i didn’t think they could see a square inch when i crept up where i could see what they were doing, for they seemed to be holding some kind of a palaver, but i didn’t get my head out before a ball raked my shoulder.
“jeff perkins is dead; he got an ounce ball through his neck while he was in a tree. they’re wide awake; but when it comes to daylight we’ll have a fair show—we can pick them off till they’re sick of staying around here.”
the man who went for dolph lowell came back and reported that he couldn’t find him.
“the lazy cuss has gone to sleep, i suppose,” said harkness, “or hid away somewhere. since he couldn’t be captain he hasn’t wanted to be anything. go up above yourself, jake durn, and look to the boys. after i’ve had my wound dressed and taken a nip to bring the life back i’ll try and crawl up again myself. i wish it was daylight—we’d make that crowd sick then in a hurry.”
the man called jake durn now hurried away, and the robber called lize over to dress his wound.
she did this with a speed and skill that told she was[201] used to such work, and after the wound was dressed she brought a bottle of liquor to harkness.
“stranger, after you!” he said, as he proffered the bottle to mainwaring.
“thank you—i don’t drink,” said the young rancher.
“don’t drink whisky?” cried harkness, in surprise. “don’t drink whisky and come from texas? why, i thought ’twas nat’ral born for a texan to drink? and you told me you was one!”
“i’m proud to be an exception, so don’t wait for me,” said mainwaring.
“well, i’m beat!” said harkness, as he raised the bottle and took a pull that was ample for both, had mainwaring been a drinker.
“hark! what was that?” said the robber. “i heard something clash.”
“i saw a horse kicking out over there,” said mainwaring, whose heart throbbed wildly now, for he had recognized the clatter of a saber against the rocks.
the robber appeared to be satisfied, and he called out to lize to get him a bite to eat to keep that “forty-rod” whisky from going to his head.
the woman cut him off a huge slice of venison from a roasted haunch and was in the act of handing it to him when her eyes, looking back into the gloom, flashed like those of an angered tigress, and she screamed:
“bill, ye’re betrayed! look—the soldiers!”
“kill them gals!” shouted harkness, as he sprang to his feet, leveling his pistol at mainwaring, who, with his revolver out, was on his feet just as quickly.
mainwaring, hearing the cry, “kill the girls!” had sprung between them and the woman, and bill harkness, following his body with his pistol, fired just as the woman turned, and his ball, instead of hitting mainwaring, pierced her body.
in a second, with a terrible cry, buffalo bill sprang forward. as the woman fell, harkness, turning to meet the onset, received a blow from the knife of the daring scout, which sent him reeling to the earth, while the cavern, filled with soldiers, pawnee indians, and scouts, rang with rapid shots as the robbers came rushing out to defend their stronghold.
“up above—up above, and wipe ’em all out, now your hand is in!” cried steve hathaway, who knew the route to the top of the cliff.
“traitor, your place is below!” cried bill harkness, raising up, with a dying effort, and firing his last shot.
as he saw steve hathaway fall he dropped back, with a gurgling death rattle in his throat.
“he wasn’t the traitor!” yelled the woman lize, who had crept up to bill in her dying agony. “there he stands!”
and she wrenched the revolver from the hands of the dead man and fired at dolph lowell just as he, seeing his danger, leveled his gun at her and fired.
both shots were sure, and while mainwaring rushed to the girls, to see that they were unharmed, he saw the man fall who would have held a seventy-five-thousand-dollar claim on him.
but it was wiped out now.
yet the fight was not all over. the men who were above, hearing the shots below, rushed down in a body, thinking to take the soldiers from the rear, while they supposed bill harkness and the others held them in front.
but they reckoned beyond their knowledge.
they were received as brave captain meinhold wanted to receive them, and hand to hand, with saber and revolver, while the pawnee “friendlies,” buffalo[203] bill, and wild bill, with battle shout and whoop and yell, went through them as fire goes through dry grass.
the robbers, asking no quarter, fought, but they fought without heart and were completely wiped out.
when the light of another day dawned men were busy clearing out the narrow road that led from the cavern.
mainwaring was now happy. he could talk to his rescued love, may, all that he wanted to.
ben, too, was in what he termed “de sebenth hebben.” his young mistresses were free; he had heard that his old master was alive and getting well, and he was out of the hands of the bad men.
there was not a great deal of plunder in the place, except in arms and horses, and these were indeed quite a capture.
