Buffalo Bill's death message or, In the face of doom
appearance ob dat, does you? Looks as if he’s leadin’ us on. I reckon
mebbe he’s livin’ over dar.”
The canoe, turning at that bend, for the high bluff ended there, was
following in the wake of the big saurian. They saw it reach the low
shore of the island, where it sank from sight, and did not rise again.
This crossing of the river in the broad light of day was a ticklish
thing, and the scout kept his eyes trained as much as possible on the
river banks below, and on those cabins. He was anxious not to be seen.
They made their landing at almost the spot where the big saurian had
disappeared. Stepping ashore there, they drew out the canoe, then took
the load out of it, and carried it back into the bushes. They did not
believe they had been observed.
As for the “alligator,” Cudjo was the only one who feared it, and
because he feared it he kept well back from the water.
The island consisted of several acres of bush-grown land lying in the
middle of the river, which here widened out into a sluggish stream, so
different from its hitherto known characteristics.
Having concealed the canoe and their belongings, Buffalo Bill and his
companions made their way quietly through the brushy ground to the other
side of the island.
They beheld now an astonishing sight. Instead of the few cabins, which
they had supposed were the only ones, they beheld a village.
The cabins were ranged along the right bank of the river, in the midst
of trees, less than a mile below the flat island. Between the houses ran
a single wide street, which paralleled the course of the river. Men were
seen walking in this street, and down by the river other men were seen
working, as if they searched for gold, or were washing it.
Buffalo Bill brought out his binoculars and covered the houses and the
men with them. The houses were big log cabins, though some of them
seemed to have additions constructed of mud and stone.
“That letther wasn’t anny lie at all, at all!” said Mike Flynn,
repeating what he had said so many times before.
“It looks as if it were true; and if so, then Red Reynard, the Fox, has
his lair right here before us. Take a look, Flynn.”
Michael surveyed the cabins and the men carefully and long.
“Begorra, it’s too bad they ain’t honest min!” he said. “We could walk
out and jine thim, av they were. But I’m guessin’ it wouldn’t be wise to
thry it.”
“Anything but wise, Flynn. We’ve got to find out what all this means,
before we venture to show ourselves.”
“I’d like to know now, so I would, if Klamath John is dead or livin’,
and what he mint by what he did. Troth, so I would! It’s that quare I
can’t make annything out av it. What do yez think av it, Cody?”
He returned the glasses, and the scout gave them to Cudjo, asking him to
take a look and report whatever he saw. Cudjo, after a few moments’
survey, began to search the river with the binoculars.
“Marse Cody, did dat ’gator go on downstream?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Well, I ’clar to goodness I fink he’s comin’ back! I sho’ seen somepin’
down dar looked lack his haid stickin’ up.”
Buffalo Bill and Flynn, not being greatly interested in the “alligator,”
continued to speculate concerning the houses and the men.
“If dem men finds us heah, Marse Cody, we’s gwine see int’restin’
times,” Cudjo prophesied.
“An’ that ain’t anny lie!” said Flynn.
“Yes,” assented the scout, “we’ll have to be careful. But I don’t think
they come often to this island. There are signs that they’ve been here,
but not for several days.”
He pointed to some marks on the sandy shore just below, where digging
had been done in the sand. When they looked closely they beheld tracks
of human feet.
“Marse Cody, how is we gwine tuh git out o’ dis place?” said Cudjo.
“I don’t know. That’s to be found out. We’re safe for the present. And
we’ve plenty to eat. But we’ll have to eat it without cooking, for the
smoke of a fire would certainly attract attention.”
For a long time the scout and his companions stared out from the shelter
of the bushes, watching the village, and the men they saw moving about.
As the scout was making a final survey of the cabins with his
binoculars, he turned them on the open door of a cabin, hoping to see
the interior. What the glasses brought into view above the door was
startling and suggestive.
“A skull and crossbones, and not a mere representation of them!” was his
thought. “Flynn,” he said, “take the glasses, and tell me what you see
just over the door of that cabin.”
Flynn took the binoculars and trained them on the cabin door.
“I hope I’m not dr’amin’,” he said, “but if that ain’t a skull, and if
thim ain’t the thigh bones av a man crossed under it, thin I am dr’amin’
or cr-razy. What does it mane, begorra?”
Cudjo clutched the glasses and looked through them.
“Marse Cody, you ’members dem stick pins? It’s des lack um, ober dat
door.”
The scout and Flynn had thought of the stick pins even before Cudjo thus
spoke of them.
“The skull and crossbones!” said Buffalo Bill. “If Klamath John found
the stick pins with that letter written by Red Reynard, the Fox, it’s
easy enough to connect the skull and crossbones on the stick pins with
those over that door.”
“It begins to luk as though that felly wasn’t lyin’ whin he towlt yez
how he found the letther,” said Flynn seriously.
“But you mustn’t forget that he went to the very depths of deception
when he disguised himself with that wig and whiskers,” was the scout’s
comment. “There is something very singular about it all.”
“Shure, it’s too quare f’r words.”
The discovery of the skull and crossbones above the cabin door threw
Cudjo into a new flutter of fear. He had never been able to forget the
outlaw wearing a stick pin of that kind, who had knocked him down at the
time of the railway holdup. Apparently members of that same band of
desperadoes occupied the cabins here in the Golconda Cup.
“I wonder if they’re washin’ f’r gold?” said Flynn, once more studying
the figures by the stream. “It’s gold I’m wantin’—gobs av it; an’ it
makes me fingers itch to think that anny man can be takin’ it out that
way, right befure me eyes, wid me here wantin’ my share, and that
hilpless I can’t poke me nose out av the bushes. Musha! But it’s the
loikes av that makes the hear-rt ache.”
Buffalo Bill brought out the stick pins he had kept in his possession,
and looked at them. Their suggestiveness, in connection with that
gruesome sign over the door of the cabin, and the letter written by Red
Reynard, was impressive.
“Fr’m the looks av the cabins—the number av thim, I mane—the min huntin’
gold down here ar-re too manny f’r us,” said Flynn. “It was the gold and
the iligant advinture that brought me. We’ve had the advinture, and I’m
not denyin’ it was thrillin’ enough; and now we want the gold. How we’re
to git it, though, I dunnaw. Thim divils have camped on the claim, and
if we secure anny gold I’m thinkin’ we’ll have to crack heads f’r it.”
---------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER VIII.
THE PRISONER.
Throughout the remainder of the day the scout and his companions kept
close under cover of the bushes of the island. They needed rest and
sleep, and were not yet ready for any decisive movement.
Shortly before sunset, while Buffalo Bill was lying down and Flynn was
dozing, Cudjo uttered a cry which brought the two white men to their
feet.
They saw Cudjo floundering at the edge of the water, as if he had
stepped off and gone beyond his depth, but as they ran to aid him they
noticed the scaly back of an “alligator” rising slowly to the surface.
The back was of a brownish mud color and seemed to be plastered over
with river slime. The next moment the huge head rose in sight, the
piggish eyes could be seen, and then the huge mouth came into view.
Within the jaws of the loathsome creature was a piece of Cudjo’s coat.
Cudjo gave another flounce and splash, like a speared fish, and the
piece of coat, tearing loose, was left in the mouth of the saurian.
Buffalo Bill seized Cudjo’s hand and helped him to land, and the saurian
disappeared with a slow and sullen movement. Cudjo fell on the shore
under the bushes in almost a fainting condition.
“Marse Cody,” he said, “I is a dead man! Dat gator bit me, and I know
I’se pizened. I sho is. I can feel de pizen wukkin’ through my
ligerments.”
He would not believe otherwise until Buffalo Bill had shown him that he
had not even been touched by the teeth of the creature.
“It caught your coat in its mouth, but its teeth never so much as
touched you!” the scout assured him.
Thereupon Cudjo sat up. His black face had changed to an ashen brown,
and he was trembling.
“A ’gator is monst’ous fond ob de meat of a nigger,” he said. “I has
heah’d dat always, and now I knows it; and it’s only by de grace o’ Gawd
dat I’se heah now, ’stead ob in dat ’gator’s stummick. Marse Cody, it
was dis heah way: I was watchin’ de sho’ over yondeh, as yo’ done tole
me to, and I was watchin’ de river fuh de ’gator. But I didn’t see ’im.
My back was to’a’ds de way we come f’um, and I was lookin’ down de river
to’a’ds dem cabins, lack you said. While I was doin’ dat dis ’gator riz
right beside me, an’ I didn’t know he was widin a mile twell he had me.
Den I yelled. Marse Cody, you’d ’a’ yelled, too. You would ’a’ been
’bleeged tuh yell. I ’spect I was head’d at dem cabins, but I can’t help
it, nohow.”
Mickey Flynn had watched the river while Buffalo Bill made his
examination of the negro, and now Flynn spoke:
“Cody, there’s a man on t’other shore, right acrass fr’m this island,
and he’s lukin’ at it. I’m bel’avin’ he heard the nagur whin he let out
that screech.”
“Who’s a nigger?” said Cudjo, bristling with indignation, in spite of
his scare; for, though Cudjo would call himself a “nigger,” he objected
to any one else doing it.
Buffalo Bill left Cudjo’s side and slipped to the point where the
Irishman was watching.
The man seen by Flynn stood on the other shore, just abreast of the
island, and stared across the water. He wore rough boots and a
red-flannel shirt, and he carried a pick, while at his hip swung a
revolver. In addition, he had long hair and a heavy red beard. After
staring a while at the island, he went on downstream, but soon he was
seen again, this time in a shallow boat, which he had drawn from under
the bank.
“He’s comin’ acrass!” said Flynn. “He shure heard the screech av the
nagur, and now we’re in f’r it. I’ll cr-rack the head av him whin he
makes his landin’. It’s a swate headache he’ll be havin’, if he comes in
close by me.”
He picked from the ground a broken bough that would serve well as a
club.
“It’s breakin’ heads reminds me of the dear ould dart,” he said grimly.
“It would be Donnybrook Fair, if there was enough av thim. Whurroo! He’s
comin’ sthraight f’r this p’int.”
Buffalo Bill stepped back and drew his revolver, though he had no
intention of using it except as a club. As a second and better thought,
he went to the heaped-up articles taken from the canoe and selected a
rope, which he looped and put in shape for a lasso cast.
The man held his way steadily across to the island, but when he
approached it he stopped the canoe, and, sitting quietly in it, looked
through the bushes as well as he could. When he saw and heard nothing,
he dipped his paddle again and came on. He drove the nose of his boat
into the reeds that grew by the water’s edge, and stepped out.
Mickey Flynn rose from behind a bush and brought his club down on the
man’s head with such force that the fellow pitched forward on his face
without a sound.
“Whurroo!” said Flynn, dashing on him. “It’s a nate way to do a job av