Buffalo Bill's death message or, In the face of doom
“Here!” he called, and to his ears his voice sounded husky and strange.
They came running to him—Lieutenant Butler, Tom Lawler, Professor
Bounderby, and Fritz Henselman.
“What has happened to you?” said Butler, when he reached the scout.
“Lawler heard something, and he thought he saw you being dragged away.
Then we knew you were gone, and we aroused the camp, and ever since have
been looking for you.”
“How long ago was that?” Buffalo Bill asked.
“Fully ten minutes.”
“What did you see dragging me, Lawler?”
“I don’t know, I couldn’t make out. I shouldn’t have known it was you
but for a groan that I thought you made, and then we found you were not
in the camp, and knew it was you. But what attacked you I don’t know.”
“Yet you really saw me dragged out of the camp?”
“Yes.”
Cody tried to sit up, and then to stand.
“If you will help me, Lieutenant Butler, I’ll try to get back to the
camp. As soon as daylight comes I hope to find the tracks of the thing
that attacked me.”
Butler and Lawler gave him aid in getting to the camp, while Professor
Bounderby and the German made a pretense of watching for the return of
the “thing,” whatever it was.
“Tell us just how it looked,” said Bounderby, when the scout was in the
camp and in some condition for talking.
“I don’t know, I saw only its eyes. I had the most singular feeling of
fear I ever experienced. I think it must have been the kind of fear a
superstitious man has when he thinks he is in the presence of a ghost.
Only this was no ghost, its grip was altogether too solid and material.
Its fingers fairly cracked my neck. When I roused up, the thing was
looking straight down into my eyes, and all I could see were those
terrible eyes staring into mine. I wanted to yell. In my opinion,
professor, we have found the thing that carried off Miss Fernald, or,
rather, it found me. Perhaps it meant to carry me away, and failed. I’m
sure I struck it with my knife, and perhaps that saved me.”
“The orang-utan is a strange beast,” said Bounderby, with oracular
certainty. “You spoke of its fingers. That is permissible, for an
orang-utan, you know, is a four-handed animal. When we say it walked
upright on its hind feet, we really mean it walked on its hind hands.”
He produced his notebook and began to scribble in it.
“If you could describe just the sound it made after you struck it with
your knife, at the moment it released you, I can make a note of it here,
and use it in my lecture.”
“If that thing captured Miss Fernald, she is dead!” declared Butler,
with much feeling.
The German had sat through all the talk, quiet, yet quaking.
“Uff id capture us ve iss all dead!” he declared now. “De young voman
iss gone—kilt. Vy should ve stay here and be kilt alretty, too? I ton’d
vish to investigation any pizness like dot. Brofessor, I t’ink ve petter
pull ower freighd oudt uff dis blace vhen de daylight come, unt I hobe
id vill come qvick.”
There was no more sleep for any of the party that night. They sat in the
darkness, with loaded weapons, watching for the return of the thing that
had attacked the scout, and they beheld it at various times, in various
forms, by the aid of their excited imaginations, sneaking across the
rocks toward them.
Yet it did not return.
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CHAPTER XX.
ANOTHER SURPRISE.
When morning came Buffalo Bill began a search of the camp and of the
ground over which he had been dragged in the darkness.
At the point where he had thrust the knife into the creature he found
marks of blood on the rocks. His knife had gone home, and it was that
which had caused the thing to drop him.
Farther on the scout saw pebbles displaced and turned, though the
hardness of the ground kept tracks from showing. He at once informed his
companions of the nature of his discovery.
Bounderby and Lieutenant Butler joined him, and the others came soon.
Pursuing the general course shown by the displaced pebbles, they shortly
gained a softer spot, and in the soil there they beheld again
footprints, like those seen the previous day in the sandy area.
The scout looked at them closely, and pointed them out.
“There is proof that the thing which attacked me last night is the thing
which carried off the young lady. We are on the right trail.”
Apparently the scout had recovered from the effects of that assault in
the night, yet there were dark lines on his throat, and he had not been
able to shake off entirely that strange and, for him, unnatural feeling
of fear and horror. Fear in its ordinary sense was a thing unknown to
Buffalo Bill. Yet he almost quaked when he remembered how those strange
eyes had looked down into his in the darkness.
“I have encountered many terrible things,” he said, “but nothing ever
before like that. Yet I don’t know what form the creature bore, whether
it was like an ape or a man. All I can recall are those terrible, fiery,
haunting eyes.”
“The eyes of an orang-utan,” said Professor Bounderby sonorously, “would
glow in the darkness like those of an animal, if seen at the right
angle. You didn’t notice a greenish glare, I suppose?”
“No, the eyes seemed fiery and staring, as near as I can describe it.
They held me spellbound with horror.”
“It is awful to think of Miss Fernald having fallen into the power of
such a creature,” said Butler. “We’ll believe that she fainted at sight
of the thing, and that if it slew her, the deed was done before she
recovered consciousness.”
He looked around with a shudder, as if he feared to behold the horrid
shape pictured by his imagination.
Buffalo Bill led the way now, with cocked revolver. The tracks of the
monster appeared so fresh that he half expected to come upon it at any
moment. At his side strode Lieutenant Butler and Tom Lawler, carrying
the necessary parts of the heliograph.
The tracks led by a roundabout course which finally drew the pursuers
under some high, natural rock walls, that were set on a sort of plateau.
From the base of these walls the country which had been passed over was
visible. The white rock, resembling at a distance the wall of a tent,
and the more distant cone-shaped hill that had played such tricks with
the compasses, could be clearly seen.
When Buffalo Bill led the pursuers up to the natural rock walls, he saw
the ground there was not favorable for trailing, and that again the
tracks of the “beast” had disappeared. He pointed out the last track to
be seen.
“The orang-utan was moving along the wall,” said Bounderby. “That track
looks very fresh, Cody.”
“I should say it was made last night, or early this morning.”
Butler stared along the wall, and ran his eyes here and there, searching
vainly for other tracks.
Fritz Henselman, who had been groaning under the weight of the heavily
laden hand bag, took this opportunity to set it down. He had kept well
behind. That seemed a safer place, and it was a thing his position as a
servant enabled him to do without question.
“Brofessor,” he said, panting heavily, “I voult yoost as soon stay here
mit de hant pag as to go furder on. Yaw! Vot iss de use? My arms iss
pulled off alretty yet. I dinks I stay here mit de hant pag. You vill
oxcoose me for nod going any furder along. I am nod afraid uff dot
peast, or vatefer it iss. Ton’d dink id! I am yoost tired oudt by too
much trafeling Yaw!”
Buffalo Bill smiled, in spite of the weight of uneasiness that burdened
his mind.
“But, Henselman,” he said, “if we go on and leave you here, that beast
may come on you from the other direction while we are gone; and then
what would you do? We don’t know which way it went, and so we can’t tell
which way it may come back.”
Henselman jumped to his feet.
“Iss dot so?” he cried, and he picked up the hand bag, apparently
forgetting that it was not light in weight, and was ready to move on
again. “Uff id vasn’t for dose magnedic needles vich haf peen magnetized
py dose magnedic moundains, ve coult fint our vay oudt uff dis place!”
he groaned. “Brofessor, I dink now dot de sun iss shining maype ve coult
find vich vay ve vish to go. Nein? I am voding dot ve try id. I haf lost
not any apes and monkeys vot I shoult pe hunding. Unt dose vimmins is
dead long ago. Brofessor, shall ve nod try to fint our vay oudt by der
light uff der sunshine?”
“Henselman, I’m ashamed of this show of cowardice!” declared Bounderby,
putting on his eyeglasses to give severity to the look he cast on his
German servant. “We are engaged in an errand of mercy—the rescue of a
young lady from the jaws and arms of a monster, an orang-utan; and shall
we here hesitate? Perish the thought! Henselman, we remain with this
party, let the result be what it may!”
But even the professor, though his words were brave enough, was shaking
a little, as he considered the result of a possible encounter with the
thing he had denominated an orang-utan.
Buffalo Bill was moving on, looking for the vanished tracks. A hundred
yards beyond he found them again, showing that he had been taking the
right course.
As he saw them thus once more, he stared. The tracks entered into a
queer-looking place in the rocks, which seemed to have been hewn out,
for it was oblong and formed on mathematical lines. Within it was a
framework of wood.
“What have we here?” said the scout to Butler, who was at the moment by
his side.
“It looks like a primitive sort of elevator,” said Butler.
And, indeed, that was just what it did look like. The hewn-out place in
the cliff, together with the wooden framework it contained, resembled an
elevator in a marked degree.
“Hello!” the scout added. “What more have we here?” Pressing farther in,
his eye had been caught by a stone image. “An Indian idol!” he
exclaimed, in astonishment. “Perhaps this is some old Indian chapel.”
Lawler was now at his side, peering in, his youthful features working
with excitement and curiosity.
The scout struck a match, and held it up so that it lighted the rather
gloomy interior of the “elevator” and fell on the stone image.
The image was apparently an idol, in a recumbent position, with an arm
extended and finger pointing. The chisel work on the face was crudely
done, yet the Indian features were recognizable.
Bounderby came crowding after Lawler, drawn by the words he had heard.
“A find?” he said.
“A queer one, professor,” said the scout. “Take a look! This seems to be
an Indian chapel, and there is the idol. What is it pointing to?”
He held the light down in the corner toward which the finger pointed,
and saw there a wooden peg set into a hole.
Bounderby had crowded in, and was staring, with his eyeglasses perched
on his nose.
“Not too fast, Cody!” he objected. “I must make accurate notes of this.”
He whipped out his notebook. “Here we have what is probably a chapel of
the ancient Aztecs, with one of the idols that race worshiped. It is a
singular discovery.”
“Did that beast come into this place?” said Lieutenant Butler. “If he
did, he went out again, because he could go no farther. This is
interesting, but we are wasting time here. His tracks are so fresh out
there that if we hasten we may come on him soon. So we oughtn’t to tarry
here.”
Henselman came in and dropped his hand bag to the floor with a thud.
“Brofessor,” he said, and his tone had an appeal in it, “I opserve dot
de sun is clouding ofer again, so dot py unt py maype de sky vill pe
yoost like it vas yistertay. Den ve can’t fint ower vay oudt uff dis
blace. I dinks me ve had petter dry id righd now, insteat uff vaiting.
Vot you dink?”
“This idol sits in a recumbent position,” Bounderby was saying aloud,