Buffalo Bill's death message or, In the face of doom
He stretched out his hand to take the candle from the back of the
saurian, but he failed, for with a motion so quick that it surprised him
the lizardlike creature slipped into a hole in the wall, taking the
candle with it.
“Begorra, did ye say that?” said Flynn, in astonishment. “It’s goin’ to
light up the rats, and the other crathers that delight in darkness.”
The candlelight went glimmering into the hole where the saurian was
disappearing, and the room began to grow dark. Buffalo Bill stopped
swinging the hammer.
“Get another candle!” he ordered, and Klamath John, nearest to them,
hurried to get candles.
On the top of the slippery rocks Cudjo was muttering like one demented.
“De big ’gator will come tuh find what’s ’come o’ de little one,” he
said. “Marse Cody, we’d better git out ob heah befor’ it does!”
He began to slide down from the rocks, getting as far from the water as
he could.
“Lave me have a whack at the dure wid the hammer!” Flynn requested, when
candles had been lighted.
A shot sounded, and they knew it was fired at the door, but the bullet
did not come through. The girl was now apparently trying to get out of
the room where she was held, and Red Reynard had turned the revolver on
the door which the scout was battering.
Klamath John, at this juncture discovered that the door by which he and
the scout’s party had come in had been opened, and that men were
hurrying in through it. He announced his discovery, and began to shoot
at the men he saw there.
“Put out the candles!” shouted Buffalo Bill.
Flynn gave them a kick that hurled them into the water, plunging the
room in darkness.
Buffalo Bill still swung the hammer, the girl was screaming now as if
attacked with hysteria, and the men who had entered the room where the
scout and his companions were opened with their revolvers.
“Bedad, but it’s gittin’ war-rm in here!” said Flynn, as he dropped
behind the rocks and answered the pistol fire of the men.
Klamath John yelled defiantly at the desperadoes, and worked his
revolvers as fast as he could.
Buffalo Bill discovered the door was yielding to his persistent
hammering. Splinters began to fly from it, and soon a blow sent the head
of the hammer through the wood.
But more men had come to the help of Red Reynard in that room, and more
men were crowding into the room where stood the gallant scout and his
companions.
Flynn continued to shoot from behind the slimy rocks, but Klamath John
stood forth boldly, as if he defied death.
The head of the scout’s hammer again sank through the door. Another blow
broke a hinge, and the door swung sideways, revealing the lighted room
behind.
Red Reynard was there, and now, with a snapshot at the scout, he
commanded his men to take him.
The girl, who had apparently been in hysteria, sprang from a corner,
and, clutching Red Reynard, tried to stop him, thus throwing him to the
floor.
Klamath John, reckless to the last, fell from the top of the rocks, with
a bullet through his body, but continued to work his pistols.
“Whurroo!” Flynn howled, in wild excitement. “We’re at the ind, Cody,
but we’ll go down like min.” He fired again at the men who were running
across the room. “Wan for ye, ye divils!”
Buffalo Bill sprang through the broken door and dashed toward Red
Reynard, seemingly as reckless as Klamath John himself. But he did not
reach Red Reynard, nor did that doughty desperado gain the side of the
scout.
A tremendous explosion sounded.
When the scout picked himself up, after the explosion, which had hurled
him heavily against the wall, he found that he was alone, except for
Michael Flynn. The girl lay on the floor, some distance away. At the
farther end of the room a fire was raging, and its light revealed all
round him broken and jagged walls.
“’Twas the alligator, I’m thinkin’, which carried aff the candle, that
done it,” said Flynn. “’Twas an ixplosion of gunpowder, d’ye mind. It
tore the very divil out av this room, and knocked me into the middle of
nixt wake. But I’m shtill livin’.”
“Marse Cody, I’se livin’, too!” Cudjo came crawling through the
shattered door and over the fallen rocks. “I was hidin’ in a hole dar
when de shootin’ was goin’ on, and when dat upsplosion done come, de
rocks des kivered me as dey fell. But I’se still livin’, Marse Cody.”
Klamath John was found in a dying condition.
“I’d like to explain to you,” he whispered. “I was honest in all them
things. I did find the letter and the stick pins, and I was only scared
when I jumped out of the canoe and grabbed that rope. I don’t know who
put the rope there, but I s’pose it was Red Reynard’s men.”
“But what made yez so mysterious about it?” asked Flynn. “Why wouldn’t
yez come to Cody’s hotel? And why did yez wear the false whiskers and
the like?”
“I was practicing,” was the unexpected answer.
“Practicing?”
“Yes, practicing for detective work. I wanted to be a detective. So I
thought I’d try to fool you—fool Cody, I mean—and I thought if I could,
I could fool anybody. That’s why I disguised myself. And I didn’t want
to come into the town, because it would increase the danger of
recognition.”
“Cody, what do yez think av that?” the Irishman asked presently. “Did
yez iver hear annything like it?”
“I never did,” was the scout’s answer.
“But he was an honist man,” said Flynn. “Klamath John was honist.”
“Perfectly honest, and perfectly foolish in doing what he did.”
Red Reynard, Bat Stevens, and others of the leaders of the desperadoes
were killed by the explosion and by the falling stones. The others, who
lingered around and were seen by the scout the next day, were scattered
by him and Flynn. One of them was captured, and he was forced to show
the scout and his party the way out of the Cup. It was a hole in the
eastern wall, hidden by vines, which the desperadoes had found after
they had by chance gained the Cup’s interior by way of the river.
When the scout and his companions went out through this hole, they took
the gold abandoned by the desperadoes, and they took, also, the young
woman, whom they restored to her father, presenting her at the same time
a considerable quantity of the gold.
“And it was an iligant advinture!” said Flynn. “It would be har-rd to
bate it!”
“You’d never git dis chile in dar ag’in,” said Cudjo.
“Because of the alligators? ’Twas wan av thim that saved us, whin he
carried aff the candle and set fire to the powder magazine. They’re
gr-reat crathers. Av that wan wasn’t kilt, I’d like him for a pet,
begorra!”
“You can hab him, Marse Flynn,” said Cudjo, his eyes big and round. “Dem
fings is called caymen by de folks heah, but dey’s sho’ nuffin’ but jes’
common alligators. And ’gators does lub de flesh ob de nigger. You cain’
never git dis chile in dar ag’in, not if dar was bags o’ gol’ in dar so
heavy I couldn’t tote um.”
“Ah, but it was the iligant advinture!” said Flynn. “I wish I could have
another wan like it.”
“I think I should enjoy an experience like that again, myself,” said the
scout. “Perhaps we shall share in further adventures, you and I. What do
you think, Mike?”
“Begorra, I’m game!” quoth Michael Flynn.
---------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XV.
THE BEWITCHED COMPASS.
Nevertheless, “game” as he was, Michael Flynn was destined not to take
part in any more “iligant adventures” with the noted scout; at least,
for several weeks. Buffalo Bill’s next commission took him far afield,
and, when he was returning from its successful conclusion, caused him to
lose his way while out on the Mexican desert near the border.
Holding his compass in his hand, Buffalo Bill looked at a round hill
before him, which was very high and almost a perfect cone.
“This is queer!” he said, and, keeping the compass level on the palm of
his hand, he walked slowly to the right for a dozen steps. He saw the
compass needle swing slowly, pointing straight at the hill.
That there might be no mistake, the scout retraced his steps, studying
the compass, and now he saw the needle swing steadily back. When he
walked farther around, the needle swung still more, always pointing at
the hill.
The sky was gray, so that the sun could not be seen. The ground under
the scout’s feet, and for a considerable distance around, was hard-baked
clay or stony, so that not a footstep showed in it. His feet had left no
tracks.
“So it’s that which has made the compass act so strangely!” he said,
looking at the hill. “This is unpleasant, and it might be serious. Here
I’ve been walking hours, trusting to the compass, and find that it has
been pointing to this hill. Now, where is north? The compass can’t tell
me, for that hill has bewitched it. The hill must be full of magnetic
iron.”
Stowing the compass in his pocket, he took out his knife and set it
upright, with the point of the blade on his thumb nail.
There are few days so gray and cloudy that a knife so placed will not
throw a shadow on the thumb nail; and opposite that shadow, of course,
is the direction of the sun. When the time of day is known, together
with the direction of the sun, north can be approximately ascertained.
But the air was filled with a smoky haze, and this, in addition to the
cloudiness and grayness, made the sky so dark that the knife blade
refused to cast its shadow.
“This is a go!” said the scout. “If I were in a northern forest I might
find north by a study of the moss on the tree trunks, which is heaviest
and reaches to a sharper point on the north side. But I’m in Old Mexico;
there are no trees near me, and I suppose in this dry land moss hasn’t
much chance to grow on tree trunks, or anywhere else.”
Cody took out the compass again and placed it on the palm of his hand.
As a matter of curiosity, he walked toward the cone-shaped hill, and he
studied the compass as he went.
“Straight at the heart of that hill it points!” he said, watching the
needle. “And when I walk to one side or the other the needle shifts. I
suppose if I should walk round the hill the compass would make a
complete circle. I’ll try it.”
Accordingly, he set out along the base of the hill, holding the compass
level.
As he expected, the needle continued to point at the hill.
By and by the scout walked up to the hill and inspected it. He saw that
it was almost a solid mass of ore, and the compass showed him that it
was magnetic iron.
As the scout continued on his way around the treeless hill, he heard
voices. Instantly he sank down behind a screen of cactus, sliding the
compass into his pocket and drawing a revolver.
“Some one here ahead of me, eh? White men, I think. And possibly
outlaws.”
Soon he saw two men come in sight round the curve of the hill. The one
who walked in front was tall, thin, and severe looking. He wore a high
hat much out of place in that region, and black, dust-stained clothing.
The man who followed him was short and squat, with a ponderous stomach.
This man was dressed in dirty plaids, and his face had a worried look.
He carried a large hand bag.
“Brofessor,” the scout heard him say, “uff de gompass tvist its head off
in dot vay, vot ve going to do? Ve can’t neffer fint our feet tracks vat
ve made in coming here yit.”
The man in front stopped, and the stumpy man behind came near running
into him.
“Henselman,” said the tall man, “this is a most peculiar mountain. It
is, as you see, of iron—magnetic iron. Truly a wonderful phenomenon!”
“Unt de grazy gompass dinks it vos de Nort’ Pole, eh?”
“Just so, Henselman. The compass thinks this is the North Pole. We
shouldn’t blame the compass. We——”
“Nein? Vot shall I plame? Me? I follow de gompass. It say: ‘Dis is de