Part 30 (1/2)
”Pa.s.sing strange!” murmured Captain Wilmot, glancing at the scout, who was at the moment seated on a keg before the fire lighting his pipe, and with a look of simple benignant stolidity on his grave countenance.
”Have _you_ no idea, Ben, where these outlaws have taken themselves off to?”
”No more'n a lop-eared rabbit, Captain Wilmot,” answered the scout.
”You see there's a good many paths by which men who knows the place could git out o' the Trap, an' once out o' it there's the whole o' the Rockie range where to pick an' choose.”
”But how comes it, Ben, that you missed Jake? Surely the road is not so broad that you could pa.s.s him unseen! Yet you arrived here before him?”
”That's true, sir, but sly c.o.o.ns like the Flint can retire into the brush when they don't want to be overhauled. That wasn't the way of it, however. With such a splendid animal as your poor horse, Captain, an'
ridden to death as it was--an' as I 'spected it would be--I knowed I had no chance o' comin' up wi' the Flint, so I took advantage o' my knowledge o' the lay o' the land, an' pushed ahead by a straighter line--finis.h.i.+n' the last bit on futt over the ridge of a hill. That sent me well ahead o' the Flint, an' so I got here before him. Havin'
ways of eavesdroppin' that other people don't know on, I peeped into the cave here, and saw and heard how matters stood. Then I thought o'
harkin' back on my tracks an' stoppin' the Flint wi' a bullet but I reflected `what good'll that do? The shot would wake up the outlaws an'
putt them on the scent all the same.' Then I tried to listen what their talk was about, so as I might be up to their dodges; but I hadn't bin listenin' long when in tramps the Flint an' sounds the alarm. Of course I might have sent him an p'r'aps one o' the others to their long home from where I stood; but I've always had an objection to shoot a man behind his back. It has such a sneakin' sort o' feel about it! An'
then, the others--I couldn't see how many there was--would have swarmed out on me, an' I'd have had to make tracks for the scrub, an' larn nothin' more. So I fixed to keep quiet an' hear and see all that I could--p'r'aps find out where they fixed to pull out to. But I heard nothin' more worth tellin'. They only made some hurried, an' by no means kindly, observations about poor Buck an' Leather an' went off over the hills. I went into the woods a bit myself after that, just to be well out o' the way, so to speak, an' when I got back here Leather was gone!”
”And you didn't see the man that carried him off?”
”No, I didn't see him.”
”You'd have shot him, of course, if you had seen him?”
”No, indeed, captain, I wouldn't.”
”No! why not?” asked the captain with a peculiar smile.
”Well, because,” answered the scout, with a look of great solemnity, ”I wouldn't shoot such a man on any account--no matter what he was doin'!”
”Indeed!” returned the other with a broadening smile. ”I had no idea you were superst.i.tious, Ben. I thought you feared neither man nor devil.”
”What I fear an' what I don't fear,” returned the scout with quiet dignity, ”is a matter which has never given me much consarn.”
”Well, don't be hurt, Hunky Ben, I don't for one moment question your courage, only I fancied that if you saw any one rescuing an outlaw you would have tried to put a bullet into him whether he happened to be a man or a ghost.”
”But I have told you,” broke in Buck Tom with something of his old fire, ”that Leather is _not_ an outlaw.”
”I have only _your_ word for that, and you know what that is worth,”
returned the captain. ”I don't want to be hard on one apparently so near his end, and to say truth, I'm inclined to believe you, but we know that this man Leather has been for a long time in your company--whether a member of your band or not must be settled before another tribunal.
If caught, he stands a good chance of being hanged. And now,” added the captain, turning to a sergeant who had entered the cave with him, ”tell the men to put up their horses as best they may. We camp here for the night. We can do nothing while it is dark, but with the first gleam of day we will make a thorough search of the neighbourhood.”
While the troopers and their commander were busy making themselves as comfortable as possible in and around the cave, the scout went quietly up to the clump of wood where Leather was in hiding, and related to that unfortunate all that had taken place since he left him.
”It is very good of you, Hunky, to take so much interest in me, and incur so much risk and trouble; but do you know,” said Leather, with a look of surprise, not unmingled with amus.e.m.e.nt, ”you are a puzzle to me, for I can't understand how you could tell Captain Wilmot such a heap o'
lies--you that has got the name of bein' the truest-hearted scout on the frontier!”
”You puzzle me more than I puzzle you, Leather,” returned the scout with a simple look. ”What lies have I told?”
”Why, all you said about what you saw and heard when you said you were eavesdroppin' must have been nonsense, you know, for how could you hear and see what took place in the cave through tons of rock and earth?”