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No. 281.

BUFFALO BILL AND GRIZZLY DAN;

OR,

NEW YORK, January 26, 1918

Price Six Cents.

PAWNEE, BILL’S GIANT SWING.

. By the author of ‘‘BUFFALO BILL.”

CHAPTER...
WILDERNESS SKILL.

In a narrow valley thickly grown to timber, watered by

a softly flowing brook, the gently sloping sides of which

were likewise mantled by the forest, it was growing dusk

on a certain afternoon while the heights above were still
glowing in the light of the setting sun. —

Birds and the more timid animals were seeking their
rest; the bolder crew of night prowlers were just coming
forth. and beginning their hunt for the’ wherewithal to
satisfy their appetites.
demeanor, was batting a fallen log to pieces in a little hol-
low, looking for the fat grabs which he gobbled down with

‘satisfied little grunts when he found any.. He was a serious-

looking old fellow; put a pair of spectacles and a ruffled
nightcap on him, and he could have posed as some old

‘grandmother ready for her rocking-chair and knitting.

But suddenly the bear halted in his engaging task, threw

around his little head with an inquiring snuff, and the .
next moment waddled off into the brush.

At the rate he lumbered away and the suddenness of
his departure, there was but one conclusion to be drawn.
He was in a panic. There was something approaching
that the huge bear feared.

But for some few moments not a thing—not even a
shadow—seemed to move in the forest. At least, this little
glade was empty. Had the bear been panic-stricken with-
out cause?

The. valley—along the brook on both sides—was not
heavily wooded. One might see a moving object at some
distance, even in this half light of the early evening.

_And into view came the figure of- a man—a man run-
ning. The bear may have been frightened by his approach,
but the man was evidently fearful of something which fol-

lowed him. Every few yards he cast a searching glance

over his shoulder as he ran. :
He was an Indian—a savage in little more than a breech-
clout and an eagle feather and moccasins. He ran with

the long, loping stride of the wolf; but he ran in labored

A big brown bear, of innocent.

fashion, too, and that showed that he had either run far
or was hard pressed.

Pursuers were on his trail; they were near; the glances
he cast over his shoulder proved that fact. And there was
a reason why he ran instead of dropping beside the trail
and potting one or more of these enemies that had run
him to a state of exhaustion.

He carried, despite its weight, a rifle. That rifle must
have been a precious possession of the red man, for with-
out it he might have made another mile in the hour.

But soméhow, somewhere, on this trail he had fallen,
and the rifle barrel, catching in some root, or under a
rock, had sustained a terrible wrench.
barrel was twisted so that to try and fire a ball from it
would have been worse than useless.

And-his only other weapon was a hunting knife. There-

fore it was likely that the pursuing party numbered more,

than one man.

Had there been but ane behind him, the redskin might

have risked a hand-to-hand conflict with his knife.

Again and again he turned to look back, and his keen,
lean, copper-colored face grimaced his hate and despair.

Rapidly the light was fading from the valley. The
Indian passed on like a-shadow—or a ghost. He footed
it by the rotten log which the bear had been mauling—
and the bear might have remained for all of him; the red-
skin would have paid him no attention whatsoever!

His eyes were given to the dark path ahead; his ears

_ were given to the footfalls. behind.

For he could hear them. His pursuers were so close
now that he could hear the pad of their feet on the thinly
turfed ground. And without doubt they were running him
by sound as well. The shadows were now so deep that
they could scarcely see him, and he could not see them.

But in less than a minute after the Indian had passed
the rotten log, three other figures reached the glade. They
were the stalwart figures of two white men in hunting
costume, and the third individual was likewise a white,

   

The end of the.

os

 
 

and

° | NEW BUFFALO

but of only medium size and height, though as quick as ~

lightning in his movements, NE ai

This third man ran ahead, He was half in Indian dress;
he was hampered by neither rifle nor pistol. But in a
sheath at his belt was a heavy-handled, long-bladed, two-
edged knife—one of those fearful weapons invented by
Colonel James Bowie, of Texas, which, in the hand of a
man who knew how to use it, was the deadliest weapon
known to the frontier. :

Behind this slighter man, who ran as easily as a leopard,
came one whose handsome face and muscular frame would
have marked him in any crowd of either whites or reds.
He wore, too, his hair in a mane upon his shoulders, and
was smoothly shaven but for a mustache and imperial:
The third man was a good mate for the others in strength
and fleetness, and as he ran he carried a pistol in his hand,
with the evident hope of getting a fleeting shot at the run-
ning Indian. ro

“He went this way, necarnis!” exclaimed the leading
‘man, turning. for an instant to look over his shoulder.

“T believe you are right, Pawnee,” replied the long-haired
maa.

“The major is sure right, by gorry!” panted the man
behind—he with the pistol. “There! I hear him.”

“Sh! He’s running hard—he’s winded!” exclaimed he
of the long hair. cae

“By the sacred O-zu-ha!” cried the leading man. ‘We'll
have that red in a minute.”

“Perhaps,” observed the man nearest him.

“What do you say, Cody?” inquired the man with the
pistol. ;

“He is still running strong, though labored. It is not a
cinch, boys.” inl A

Their own pace was steady and even, although they were
not so well dressed—or undressed—for the task as the
red fugitive. But they had not run so far as he. Only
this broken ground had forced them to discard their horses
and chase the redskin afoot:

“It’s getting darker every minute,”
behind. “He'll escape us yet.”

“Don't be a betty, Hickok!” jerked out the leader of the
trio.. “See yonder! There’s the moon!” ;

“Aren't you just right, major!” cried the man with the
pistol, taking sudden heart again. aa

Above the hilltop the round, glowing face of the moon
had already appeared; and as the sun glow faded in the
western skies, her light played more kindly on the valley.

To the fugitive Indian the moonlight, penetrating the
forest and bathing the bottom of the valley with its soft
glow, was the last circumstance against him.

There was now no escape. His pursuers were gaining
steadily. He could only for a few moments longer keep
out of their sight. |.

Had there been any. deep body of water handy, or a
steep cliff down which the desperate red could have thrown
himself, he would have committed suicide so as to keep
his scalp from falling into the hands of the enemy. To be
killed and scalped, according to his red belief, was to go
disgraced to the happy hunting grounds. __

But no such eseape as that was vouchsafed him. He
was almost-at his last gasp. He was at a more desperate
state than his pursuers believed. i

He knew that his every footfall was heard by the trio
in his rear. He could not speed up and lose them for even
a moment. :

And then—just at this desperate juncture—something
occurred which might be termed actually miraculous. At
least, it was miraculously beneficial to the redskin.

As the red runner loped heavily along the brookside
there was a sudden little scurry behind a huge log that lay
on the bank. A deer jumped up from its bed at the far-
ther end. of the log and dashed off through the forest at
terrific. speed.

The Indian instantly seized this opportunity—-one that
none but a savage would have seen. He leaped lightl
upon the log, ran along its length without making a sound,
and dropped down into the lair still warm from the deer’s
body. There he cowered, almost breathless, while the feot-
falls of the fying animal grew fainter and fainter. to the
ear.

. The next moment the three white men appeared, running

muttered the man

BILL) WEEKLY.

‘at top speed. But this burst of speed lasted for only a
‘few moments. The footfalls of the deer were soon indis-
tinguishable. sei Laan
The trio stopped as by common consent beside the log. .
“On-she-ma-da!”. ejaculated the smaller man. “That
red scamp fooled us, necarnis.” ee
“He was holding back until it got dark,” grunted Hickok,
putting his pistol back in his belt. “Now we can’t foller
his trail, and he’s sartainly got us heat to a frazzle run-
ning! What do you say, Buffalo Bill?”
“You boys seem to have figured it out about right,” said
he of the long hair gravely. “I would have staked my oath
the red was nigh done up. This surprising burst of speed
quite knocks us out. We'll have to camp here and take
up the trail again at daylight.” ;
As the long-haired man’s companions agreed to this
statement, the redskin, cowering behind the end of the
log, whispered to himself, and not without fear:
“Pa-e-has-ka !”

CHAPTER IL
THE CAMP.

At this time the now great State of Utah was almost
entirely) a wilderness, saving around the headquarters of
the Mormons at Salt Lake City.. Here and there through-
out the vast territory were settlements destined later to
become wealthy and bustling towns and cities.

The Mormons were sharp enough to remain friendly
with the Indian tribes found in the territory. when they
arrived—-with the. Utes especially, and the Navahos and
Hualpai Indians who sometimes spilled over from their
lands in New Mexico. . The long caravans of freight, and -
the moving parties, belonging to the Latter Day Saints, as
the Mormons styled themselves, were not molested by. the
redmen. ‘The fate of other settlers moving into the terri- -
tory was sometimes too awful to write about!

The depredations of the Indians at this time—especially
of a branch of the great Ute nation, at the head of which
that. really great. statesman, Colorow,. still- stood—had
caused the United States authoritieg to send Major Pringle
and a detachment of cavalry and half a regiment of “walk-
a-heaps,” as the Indians termed the infantry, into this part
of Utah to quell the reds. | ag

With the boys in blue, and in full command of both
the white and red scouts attached to Maior Pringle’s com-
mand, was the man who, above all others, the Indians
themselves feared. Yet they admired him and trusted him, -
toe, for “Pa-e-has-ka,” or Long Hair, had never been.
known to break his word to an Indian. Nea

Since his boyhoed, and on the old Kansas-Nebraska:
trails, William F. Cody had fought Indians, had learned
their ways of thinking and acting—was weill-nigh an Indian
himself, indeed. And his two companions at this time
were likewise old Indian fighters. a

Wild Bill Hickok, of Laramie, was a famous pistol shot,
had served as both sheriff and United States marshal; and
had never yet shown the white feather in: the face of either
red or white foe. As for Major Gordon W. Lillie, second
in command to Buffalo Bill himself, he had spent years
among the Indians and had become, as near as a white
man could, one of the redskins themselves. :

But when it comes to woodcraft and: wilderness skill, -
the white man always falls just a little short of the red.
Civilization has done too much for us.’ It has: dulled our
senses—those senses that, like the instinct of the wild
animal, once warned us of threatening harm or aided us
to find the blind trail of our enemy or of game. ot

But. the untutored savage still retained this keenness of
scent, eyesight, hearing, and—something else. A red man
would have instantly realized that it was a four-footed-
creature, instead of a’ two-footed, that broke into such 2
fast run and left the three white men panting and dis-
gusted beside the log in the forest.) b2\c0 3

“Come on, boys!” said Buffalo Bill more cheerfully to
his comrades, “It was a lone Indian, and we have fol-
lowed him a good twenty miles fram the point where he
left his gang. We can risk a fire, I reckon-—end T didn't
throw away m pack, We'll eat,”

“And a good thing, too,” growled Hickok. “Tt will put
heart into us; and the Injun, smart as he is, will be plumb
tired out after that trick he’s played us.” Paige ee

 

 

 

 
 

 

NEW BUFFALO

“He’s safe till morning, just the same.” said Pawnee
Bill, the slighter man. “An-pe-tu-we! If he didn’t run
but a mile, he’s got us tied up in a sack just the same.”

“But he can’t hide his trail in the dark,” said Buffalo
Bill quietly. “The moonlight won't last long in this valley.
He won't travel far before daybreak.”

“You bet hé won’t!” agreed Pawnee Bill. “Shades of
Unk-tee-hee!” (All unseen spirits are sons, or disciples,
or Unk-tec-hee.) “Injun no walk when um ghosts walk
—wuh!” And he chuckled.

The Indian religious belief is truly spiritualistic. Un-
seen spirits—some good, but many more evil—guard every
place, every time of life, every season, and every act. An
Indian will neither travel nor fight by night if he can help
‘it. The dark hours belong to the “shades of Unk-tee-hee.”

The three white men built their camp with neatness and
dispatch. There was a sheltered place at the butt of the
great fallen tree, and Buffalo Bill made a little fire of hard,
dry wood against the huge log. Little smoke arose from
this, and the fire was clear, but low. Although they be-
lieved that they were practically alone in this valley—sav-
ing for the Indian fugitive—they took as few chances as
possible. They did not wish to attract any chance trav-
eler's attention to their camp. :

And there they were bivouacked, while scarcely sixty
feet away the Indian lay curled in the nest of the fright-
ened deer!

He could hear the murmur of their voices. As the fire
flared up now and then he could see their flickering shad-
ows upon the leafy roof of the camp. The odor of scorched
pork and boiling coffee tickied his nostrils.

They were unconscious of his near presence, totally un-
conscious, indeed; yet the Indian knew that they were
alert. A step, a rustle, the crackling of a twig, the star-
tled cry of a bird—any one of these would instantly set
the three scouts on their guard.

So he lav like the log itself—quite as motionless and
only breathing quietly. Small, night-prowling vermin
passed him without seeing him. If they chanced to smell
him they scuttled away softly into the runways and hide-
outs along the bank of the brook.

The water trickled over the stones with a sound as loud
and distinct as the ticking of grandfather’s clock. The
redskin’s mouth was parched and his tongue clove to his
upper jaw, but he dared not creep down to the brogk to
satisfy this terrible thirst.

The Indian is taught from birth to suffer in silence.
Under the lash of torture, even at the burning stake, it is
seldom that the red man gives voice to pain.

Before he can be a brave-a warrior—he must go
through the initiation prescribed by the laws of his tribe;
and that initiation often includes the infliction of such pain
that scarcely a white man living could endure the same
without a groan..

Of course, in many of these savage ceremonies the can-
didate has the fanatical uplift of all religious maniacs; it
is a species of insanity that numbs the physical senses.

But here was a case of plain endurance with no help of
mind control! The redskin lay thirsting, hungry, cramped
in body, for hours and hours-—-and within sound and smell
of such rude comforts as are obtainable in the forest.

The: three white scouts ate and drank and stretched
themselves comfortably before their tiny fire under the
influence of pipes and cigars. The odor of the smolder-
ing tobacco reached the nostrils of the Indian, too, and,
as he loved the weed, that added to his discomfort. His
eyes glowed like points of fire in the darkness, and his
dark face grimaced into an expression of hate and ferocity
awful to behold.

Had it been in his power he would have sunk his knife
into the heart of each of the trio of whites in turn; and
they would have killed him with as little compunction.

It was not for death that the scouts had chased him,
however. Buffalo Bill wished to catch this warrior alive.
Something had happened twenty miles or more back upon
the trail to Lone Tree Gap; this redskin, Buffalo Bill knew,
could explain that bloody happening. °

The three comrades, riding the wagon trail aforemen-
tioned, had come upon a sight all too common at that time
and in that territory—a sight to make the blood of white
men fairly boil,

BILL WEEKLY. Cs 5

They had followed some distance the trail of Indian
ponies; then this single, unmounted warrior had leit his
crew and was evidently a runner to some other band of
Indians, or to some hidden yillage in the mountains.

The trail was hours old, and the mounted Indians could
not be caught; but Buffalo Bill had decided that this
courier afoot might be run down. He and his mates had
started upon.that task, and, as we have seen, were able to
come close to the runner before they were forced to aban-
don their steeds. : |

Leartiing that he was being chased, the wary red man
had evidently turned from the path which he would have
otherwise followed, and led his pursuers across so rough
a stretch of country that the whites had to abandon their
horses. Then he cut down into this valley, hoping that
he had shaken them off his trail.

Not so, however; Buffalo Bill and his friend Major
Lillie, and their companion from Laramie, were not men
to give up a task when once. begun, so easily. They were
comparatively fresh, while the Indian had run half a day or
more, Although shod in riding boots, they managed, as we
have seen, not only to keep the Indian’s trail, but to gain
upon him. :

But now, unconscious of his near presence, they were
content to wait until daylight should show them his foot-
prints along thebrookside. They smoked out their pipes,
and then two rolled themselves as snugly as possible be-
tween the fire and the log for warmth, while the third
kept watch.

They had no blankets or other comforts, and only two
pistols and a bowie between them as weapons, their other
firearms being with the horses, five miles or more away.

The forest was inhabited by more savage creatures, 10-
deed, than the red warriors. Huge bears might venture
down from the mountains; the distant yell of the panther
reached the ears of the watcher; occasionally a lone, wolf
howled his call to the pack.

The spark of fire which was kept alive, however, de-
fended the campers from these beasts of prey. A handful
of dry wood flung upon the fire would quickly light up
the glade and drive away any prowling brute.

But the fire had no terrors for another and even more
watchful enemy. The Indian, once more strong and re-

’ freshed, despite ‘his hunger and thirst, did not close his

eyes. He lay there in the deer wallow, biding his time.

To quell the gnawing hunger he pulled his belt tighter.
He endured thirst without complaint. He might now
have crept softly away from the bivouac of the whites,
and if the sentinel of the camp had heard him he would.
have thought it merely some prowling brute,

A few hundred yards placed between his- enemies and
himself, and he might have felt free to drink at the brook
to repletion. He could then, too, walk nimbly away from
the camp and put many miles between himself and the
whites before morning.

And there was something besides his fear of spirits that
kept this redskin in the deer wallow. No matter how far
he traveled in the night, he knew that his enemies would
follow. Not until light came could he do much toward

hiding his trail, and he believed that he had such acuteness

and wilderness skill pitted against his own that he would
have difficulty in fooling his enemies.

For he knew Pa-e-has-ka, the Long Hair.
scout was on his trail, and the redskin was aware that
the scout was a marvelous reader of signs, Buffalo Bill
might have made the mistake of taking the sound of four
hoofs for two, but give him the use of his eyes and the
scout would not fail to read-the faintest signs..

Harbored, as he was, at the end of the log farthest from
the white men’s bivouac, the Indian could raise his eyes
to a level with the log, and, glancing along its length, the
glow of the low fire was visible, as well as the shadow of
the upright figure of the sentinel ‘beside the bole of a
near-by tree.

Had the Indian possessed a gun in good condition, he
could have shot the sentinel from where he lay. But that
would not have satisfied his bloodthirstiness—nor would it
have been the part of wisdom for him to have done such
a thing. :

Had he killed one of the whites in such a way, the other
two would surely have searched him out, and he wquid

The famous

 
4 : NEW BUFFALO >

have paid for their comrade’s death by losing his own
life.

No, the redskin had a more significant’ plan than that.
He did not wish to kill one of his pursuers only. He had
determined on one great thing: He would take the scalps
of the three white men to his wigwam! Such a feat would
make him a great man in his tribe—his praise would be
sung throughout the Ute nation—the story of it would
be told and retold around every council fire.

Therefore, rolling this sweet cud of hope under his
tongue, the redskin lay sleepless, every nerve on the qui
wive, while the dark hours dragged by and the gray armies
of approaching dawn crept into the valley.

The sentinels had been changed twice. One white man
had awakened another after a certain season, and the
freshly awakened man had taken the other’s place beside
the tree. The fire had been fed just enough to keep it
alive.
Wild Bill Hickok stood the final watch. The sky above,
such as he could sée of it between the treetops, was a gray-
blue bed in which the stars were beiig tucked away for
the day. The forest about the glade, however, was still
but a dim green blur of color, And at this hour all nature
seems on tiptoe, breathlessly waiting the coming of dawn.

It was yet too early to arotise his comrades. Wild Bill
stretched his arms and yawned silently. While his eyes
were tight shut in this momentary éxercise, the watchful
redskin glided out of his place at the end of the log,
dodged around behind the sentinel, and then, with uplifted
knife, and the tread of a wild cat, drew nearer and nearer
to the unconscious man!

CHAPTER IIL
GRIZZLY DAN.

Perched in the mouth of a shallow cut high up on the
western boundary of this valley, a log house was cozily
sheltered from wind and’storm. The timber was cleared
around the cabin, only a few trees being left for shade. It
was a solidly built structure, with apertures’ here and there
in the walls where a rifle could be poked out, if need be,
and the door was of heavy, ax-hewn planks.

There was a small squaré window facing the east, and
this was fot shuttered; but a home-cured doeskin hung
inside it, one corner having fallen down and now fluttered
. ih breeze which had sprung up with the first approach
of day.

Up. here the day opened earlicr than in the valley.
Although the sun still lingered lazily in bed—being un-
willing to kick off the covers of fleecy clouds that were
strung along the top of the éastern mountains—it was
growing quite light about the cabin.

It was at least light enough to reveal the skins stretched
upon the outside of the logs near the door, the fireplace
built in the open, some half-hewn logs, and a stack of
firewood, and, before the closed door of the cabin, a great,
dirty gray pile of something that looked more like a heap
of canvas in the still uncertain light than anything else.

But the gray light stole into the window where the
doeskin had fallen away, and it revealed a man. sitting -at
the rude table and facing the Nght. The seat he occupied
was merely a section of log; the table was a slab on crudely
hewn logs; in a dim corner were revealed the outlines of
a bunk built against the wall, and in another corner, near
the clay-and-stone fireplace, some hanging shelves.

The man had not been sleeping on the skins of which
there was a heap in the bunk. His face was on his folded
arms upon the table. His clothing was of some hairy fur
that looked like bearskin—at least, his coat and breeches
looked like that. From above his knees to his ankles, how-
ever, he wore deerskin leggings séwn with the sinews of
the deer itself and laced with strings of cured deer hide.
On his feet he wore Indian moccasins.

Like so many frontiersmen, this individual. had made
him a cap of the raccoon skin, the striped tail of the crea-
ture being made to hang dowa behind. A raccoon hide
was just about big enough for a eap, and if one wished to
be particularly fancy the head was stuffed and sewed to
ihe front for a peak, with glass beads set in the eye-

olés,

This cap had fallen from the head of the man asleep at

   

  

BILL WEEKLY. .

the table in the cabin. And the bared head was a strange,
not to say horrible, sight!

All around the man’s head, even above the forehead for
a little distance and hanging down behind to the collar
of his bearskin jacket, was a thatch of coarse, gray-black .
hair. It was not iron gray, but seemed to be in alternate
locks of jet black and dirty gray: ,

On the middle of his pate, in a rude circle of say four
inches in diameter, not a hair grew. More than that—
his head was not only bald, but it was scalped! This man
had some time suffered a torture that few people have
suffered and lived. There have been cases where a victim .
of such a savage act endured after the operation—but was
insane!

This man, however, had been “scalped to the ears,” as
was’the saying—for, ordinarily the redskin takes merely a
lock of hair and a circular piece of skin from the head
of his dead victim about the size of a silver dollar. When
it took two savages to kill.a man, however, his entire
scalp was torn from his head; and this unfortunate seemed
to have been the victim of such an outrage.

Where skin and hair had been removed a pinkish-gray
membrane seemed to have formed over the palpitating
arteries and thin flesh beneath. The beating of the blood
through these veins could be seen now as the gray light
grew “at the window and shone full upon the horrible
wound.

And—perhaps because the bare flesh was so sénsitive to
a change of temperature—the warmth of the first red ray
of the sun, which flashed from the cloud bank on the east-
ern summits directly into this cabin window, was the cause
of his awakening with a start.

When he raised his head there was revealed a bushy-
bearded being with eyes that glowed like live coals—a grim
countenance, indeed. And he awoke as alert and wide
awake as though such a thing as sleep had never been
invented !

As he stood up from the table, his right hand closed
upon the rust-streaked barrel of the rifle that had lain
under his arms across the table while he slept. He was
not a tall man, but was broad and possessed great depth
of chest and a long arm. He was belted at the waist, and
thrust into the belt were a pistol and hunting knife.

He picked up his cap, pulled it down upon his head to
hide the bare spot, and strode to the door. Lifting the
bar, he flung the portal open, yet involuntarily standing
so that little of his body could be seen from outside.

A second or two he waited before stepping into the
aperture, and this brief time it took him to scrutinize the
clearing before the cabin. Then his gaze rested upon the
gray heap on the doorstone just before he placed his right
foot upon it.

“Whup!” he exclaimed, in something between a growl
and human speech.

With the word he swung back his moccasined foot and
kicked the furry heap soundly, There was no uncertain
tone in the growl that answered his own audible comment
and the comment of his solid foot. Up sprang a_ half-
grown bear, and that it was of the tribe of Ole Ephraim
there could be no mistake,

The beast dodged another kick and stood off, growling
and eying the man sideways as though half tempted to
spring upon him. But the hermit gave.the brute no further
attention.

Instead, he swung the door to behind him to keep. out
wandering and inquisitive denizens of the fotest that lay
around, and proceeded in a straight course down the rough
hillside into the valley where the brook flowed.

Immediately following sunset of the prévious:» evening

_ the hermit had seen a light flash up at a certain point in

the bottom land. Although the forest so thickly covered
this hillside, this spark of fire rose atid fell steadily, and
the hermit knew it was a camp fire. As the Indians were
in revolt, he did not believe any wandering buck had built
the small fire; they would have been more prodigal of fuel
in the first place.

As he swiftly descended the hill he caught the flare of
the camip fire once more. It was likely that the white man,
or men, who had lit the fire were not yet astir, for it was
still dark in the valley.

As the man in skins went on he heard a snuffing and

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

NEW . BUFFALO

scuffling in the brush behind him, and flashed a look behind
to catch the bulky shape of the young grizzly, trailing him.

“Whup! To heel, John!” he growled. .

The bear, like an ill-behaved dog, came cringing in, and
thereafter followed his strange master with nose close
to or and close to the hermit’s moccasined heels
as well.

But suddenly, when the oddly assorted pair were almost
at the foot of the decline, the bear snuffed loudly and
then whined. He stopped, too, and waited for the man
to look about.
was dim, for they had descended the mountainside more
swiftly than the morning light descended.

The man saw nothing; he heard nothing. Yet, with a
second whine, the bear dodged out of sight in the neighbor-
ing thicket.

Alert, the man in skins dropped to cover himself and
continued in a bent attitude, yet with long, swift strides.

He was sure the camp below was not yet astir. Not a
sound announcing the presente of humans had reached
his eats. The bear, however, could smell farther than he
could hear, and well the hermit knew it. ‘

Suddenly the man broke cover at the edge of the glade
in which the three white scouts had spent the night. At

least, although he did not show himself beyond the fringe

of brush, he opened a space so that he could see.

At the farther side was the plint of flowing water.
There was the huge tree lying prone across the glade, at
the butt of which the white men had made their bivouac.

And almost instantly the keen eyes of the stranger saw
Wild Bill standing with back to him and stretching himself
more fully awake, while behind the again freshly burning
firé lay his sleeping friends,

But the watcher beheld another thing—the form of the

redskin, his knife raised to strike, striding soft-footed upon
the totally unconscious sentinel of the camp!

This was no time for hesitation. The hetmit dared not
shriek a warning to Wild Bill. Ia s0 many seconds the
Indian’s knife would sink to its hilt in the Laramie man’s
back, and withow much doubt he would sink without even
a groan to the ground—and as dead as Julius Ceesar.

‘Heavy as the man in furs appeared, and clumsily as he
was dressed, his movements could scarcely have been
equaled in swiftness by Pawnee Bill himself,

He seemed to clear the distance between him and the
Indian in one catamountlike leap. His rifle, swung up like
a club, descended upon the redskin with force enotigh to
have dashed out his brains—had the blow ever landed.

But a tree branch intervened; it broke the’ force of the
blow. The Indian was knocked off his feet and the knife
flew from his hand.

Wild Bill “came awake” about as suddenly as ever he
had before in his life. He whirled, and his pistol was in
his hand when he came face to face with the chagrined
man in skins,

In one glance the Laramie man knew all. The Indian
was just leaping up and away. The pistol king fired at
him, and by a.second miracle the red’s life was spared. —

In-whirling so quickly Wild Bill tripped on a root. Even
as he pulled the trigger he felt himself falling, and his
bullet went high among the treetops.

“Gosh all Friday!” he yelled.

The shot and his yell brought Buffalo Bill and Pawnee
Bill to their feet. The Indian had shot across the glade,
and it looked as though he would escape, although the man
in skins pulled a steady bead on him with his rifle. But
it takes much longer to get into action with a rifle than
with a pistol, and the red was at the edge of the jungle
when another actor appeared upon the scene.

Right beside the running redskin, and from the thicket,
appeared the grizzly that had followed the hermit down
from the heights. The red uttered a single raucous shout.
- It was his death yell. The paw of the hermit’s savage

pet swung like a great flail, and the redskin, with his head
amass of shattered bone and flesh, was thrown twenty
feet and against the fallen log.

There he dropped to the ground, quivered once in all

kis length, and lay still.

The bear, growling savagely, would have followed up

the attack; but his master sprang across ihe intervening
space and drove the brute back with a sound blow across

       

The forest was thick here and the light |

BILL WEEKLY. — ; 5

his snout—the tenderest spot bruin possesses in all his
anatomy.

“Whup! Back!” commanded the man in skins.

With a deep growl, the bear retired, pushing his bulky
timp into the thicket and so disappéaring slowly as the
three scouts approached the spot.

“By the sacred O-zu-ha!” cried Pawnee Bill, “Is this
a nightmare, or just an ordinary occurrence in these hills?”

“That same was a gtizzly if ever I sighted one,” mur-
mured Wild Bill.

Buffalo Bill did not speak, but waited for the stranger _
to express himself. The mah in skins did so most non-
chalantly : !

“Couldn’t let him git at th’ Injun, though he hates ’em ©
wuss nor poison. He ain’t never tasted yooman blood;

wen he does, it’s either ‘Good-by, John!’ or ‘Good-by, .

Grizzly Dan!”
CHAPTER IV.

A TERRIBLE STORY.

“Then you guarantee to have control enough over the
brute so that he won’t come back and sidewipe us as he
did the Indian, my friend?” asked Buffalo Bill, smiling
and putting out his hand to the frontiersman.

“He ain’t noways fond of strangers, John ain't,” drawled
the man ih furs; “but I don’t reckon he’d attack ye unless
ye riled him. But Injuns he does p’intedly hate—I taught
him to hate ’em.”. j

“And how long have you been teaching that beauty?”
asked Pawnee Bill curiously.

“Come three year now. I got him when he war a blind
pup—killed his mother an’ his daddy, too, I reckon. L’arnt
him ter eat jest like ye would ah orphan calf. But ye can’t
relly call him house broke, ner fit fer a lady’s pet.”

“So you are Grizzly Dan?” said Buffalo Bill quietly.
“I have heard of you, but ] had no idea you were living
in these hills.”

“I been yereabouts now for nigh six year. Fust off I
was over to Lone Tree Gap; but some cttious son of a
gun got to scratchin’ the yarth over thar an’ he foutd color.
So thar was th’ as’al rush, an’ I skun out.”

“T take it you don’t caré for neighbors, then?” chuckled
Wild Bill.

“Not at times. [’'m diffrent from other men—an’ I know
it. Thar’s times w'en I wanter be erlone. This yere kentty
is gittin’ too thickly settled, anyway.”

“That's what old Nomad says,” said Pawnee Bill. _

Grizzly Dan turned on him with suddenly twinkling
eyes and a grin, showing the black fangs in his jaws.

“Ole Nick Nomad?” he demanded.

“Surést thing you know, partner,” said Lillie.

“Ts he travelin’ with you-uns?” asked this strange man
0’ the woods. nay

“He is on the Lone Tree Trail right now,” said Buffalo
Bill. “He and two other scouts of my party—a_ Piute
named Little Cayuse, and a German named Schhitzen-
hauseér.”

“Them I don’t know,’ said Grizzly Dan, shaking his
head. “But I know Nick Nomad.”

“Ves. It was ftom him I first learned of you, Grizzly
Dan,” said the king of scouts. “He has known you for
fifteen years or more.”

The face of the frontiersman was suddenly changed as
to its expression. Grizzly Dan was no beauty at best; now
his usually savage expression was intensified, his eyes
were fired with a truly murderous light, and his lips were
drawn back from his broken and discolored teeth as are
the lips of a snarling wolf.

“Aye—fifteen year it is,’ he said. ‘Fifteen year ago
they found me at Yellow Face Gulch—and brought me .
back to life, curse them !”

The vehemence with which he uttered the words startled.
the three scouts, and they remained silent. - ahs

“That’s whar they found me. The reds had left me
for dead, all right, all right “Twas a pity Nick an’ them
¥ Dae ever saved me from th’ crows. I'd been better

ead,” :

Under his matted beard the man’s sun-and-weathér-
tanned face began to fiush. Buffalo Bill was sorry he had
mentioned old Nomad, for it was plain that the circum-

 
  

‘after it is over.

BUFFALO

co NEW

stance had started in this strange man’s mind a flow of
“memory. that racked him to the very core of his soul!
“Lemme tell ye,” he panted, his glowing eyes holding
the gaze of the three listeners.- “Lemme tell ye. I lived
‘in old Missouri. Why in thunder I left it I dunno. It’s
_like Missouri people has got the itch for travelin’. Things
-allus look better farther on to ’em.
“That’s the way it was wi’ me. I couldn’t be content.
I sold out, packed a waggin, hitched a span of hosses an’
two mules to hit, an’ set forth.”
He hesitated; the fire began to die out of his glaring
eyes, and he licked his lips before he said the next words:
“The wife, she traveled with me. In the waggin. Jest
bunked along o’ the rest o’ the train—for we j'ined a crowd
-travelin’ inter Utah tergether. Some of us expected ter
go clean ter, Californy.

“Yes, she come wi’ me,” repeated Grizzly Dan in a voice

much softer than before. “We only had one child—a gal.
She was five w’en we started. We left her wi’ my wife's
folks. W’en we got established—mebbe rich—we was
goin’ ter send for her.

“So we got to. Yellow Face Gulch. You-all know wot
happened thar fifteen year ago, I reckon?” And his face
began to work again, and the blood flowed into it until he
looked apopléctic. “Them cursed reds hopped on us. They
killed every man, woman, and child.. They killed me. This
“mutilated carcass they left ain’t a man no more!

“Thar’s times,’ pursued the excited unfortunate, “w’en
I ain’t accountable fer my acts. I knows it. I aint’ fit ter
live with white folks. I hates the reds. Wot d’ye spose
I teaches my grizzlies ter hate redskins fer? I loves ter
see th’ beasts tear a red ter pieces. Oh, I got er pit back
thar in the hills whar I’ve flung more than one red, you
bet! Th’ grizzlies gets ’em!”

His glaring eyes, his suffused face, and his almost in-
articulate speech warned the listeners that he was fast
verging upon some paroxysm; but they did not know what
to do-for him. He swung his head as a bear does, looking
from one to the other of the three scouts.

“Ve see, I ain’t allus accountable,’ he growled. “I seen
the reds kill ’em all. I was the last, in the middle of the
barrier we made of the waggins. They picked all the
men off fust; then they rushed the waggins and got at
the wimmen an’ th’ babbies.

“It was a sight! I tell ye, it would ha’ blasted yer eyes
ter seen wot them red devils done. And then I seen two
of the filthy. bucks grab my Anna!”

Grizzly Dan tottered on his feet. He dropped his rifle
and pushed the cap back on his head. It fell off and bared
to their gaze the scalped pate, all suffused with blood, the
pulse beating tremendously,

“T ‘saw them! I saw them!” he screamed hoarsely,
throwing up his arms. “They tore her limb from limb——”

He toppled over upon the ground, rolling, his. limbs
twitching, his black teeth bared, the foam flying from his
lips. A more terrible paroxysm it would be impossible to
imagine:

, “On-she-ma-da!” gasped Pawnee Bill. “What a case!”
( “By gorry, it’s too bad the reds didn’t finish the poor
fellow!” whispered Wild Bill.

“Don’t touch him,’ advised Cody. “It is an awful case. _
This is epileptic, of course; brought on by the effect of
what he went through.. But he will-be physically better
And don’t speak of his trouble again.
I did not realize that a reminder of it had such an effect
upon him. Nomad, who has met up with him several
times since he and some comrades found the man—the
single living being after the Yellow Face massacre—told
me that he was .pretty queer in his head.”

“An-pe-tu-we!” ejaculated Pawnee Bill. “Who wouldn’t
be queer—with that head?” ‘

_ “He certainly has it in for the reds,” grunted Wild Bill,
casting a swift glance around. “What would happen if

39?

that grizzly.came back right now?
: “Qn-she-ma-da! Isn’t that right?’
8
“He must have a supernatural power over the critters,”
said Wild Bill.

“He is a strange man. Who or what he really is I

reckon he has never told. They began calling him Grizzly
Dan some years aiter he became a hermit in the moun-

   

 

Bib WEEALY.

tains north of here. The reds think he is bad medicine,
all right. Who wouldnt think so if they saw him walking
through the forest with a tame grizzly trailing behind him
like a friendly tomcat?” J

“That’s right, too,” said Wild Bill.

“But Nomad says he is a wonderful trail hunter; his
senses are keener than the ordinary white man’s. He is
sure an unfortunate fellow.”

“Hold on!” said Pawnee Bill, stooping over the fallen
man. “He is coming to himself again.’

CHAPTER: Vi
THE PRINT OF A WHITE WOMAN'S FOOT.

Almost as stiddenly as he had gone into the fit, Grizzly
Dan became himself once more. He sat up, reached for
his cap, and pulled it down over the unpleasant-looking
wound tpon his head. He seemed to shrink from having
the place exposed to sight. :

Wild Bill had run down to the brook and now brought
back a pannikin of water. This Grizzly Dan drank tn one
great draft and then climbed to his feet. He was silent,
and the others did not speak directly to him until Buffalo
Bill had thrown fresh fuel on the fire and brought forth
their small store of bacon and coffee.

“Stop and take pot luck with us, Dan,” said the chief
scout. “We don’t need to hurry on the back trail now.
Your grizzly has done our work for us—and done it, well.”

“T reckon you-uns was chasin’ of thet redskin fer a
perticlar purpose?” suggested the hermit.

“We certainly were. I'd like to have caught him alive
and asked him a few questions. But if you hadn’t come
along as you did, he might’ have knifed all hands and
got away with our hair.” ie

“You might say so!” returned Grizzly Dan vigorously.

“He was a sharp one to creep back here and try and do
for us,” said Wild Bill.

~ “Was you on his trail last night?” asked the hermit.

Lillie explained how they had. come to be following a
lone Indian, and how he had fooled them in running the
evening before.

ee got yere jest at dark?” asked Grizzly Dan.

“Sure.”

“And the Injun trailed jest ahead of ye till it got dark,
an’ then lit out like a fresh man?”

“That's it,’ admitted Pawnee Bill.

“?Tain’t like er Injun,” muttered the backwoodsman.

While breakfast was being prepared and the other three
white men were washing up, Grizzly Dan examined the
locality thoroughly. It was not so easy to trace the move-
ments of the redskin now, for they had all crossed and re-
‘crossed his footprints, to say nothing of the bear. -

But at length Grizzly Dan came to the fire with a broad
grin upon his ugly face.

“Buffler Bill, ye aire sure some sign reader, and a good
scout. I ain't doubtin’ of ye a minute. . But ye aint an
Tnjun.” ;

“T don’t claim to be,” returned Cody, with a smile.

“Nor yer pards ain't Injuns—though Little Bear, yere,
was ‘dopted inter th’ Pawnee nation, I understand. And
this yere Injun thet my John jest swiped knowed thet ye
warn't Injun.”’

“Well, what of it, old man?” asked Wild Will,
some impatience.

“Why, that’s jest this yere of it: Thet redskin would
never have tried ter play th’ trick he did on other Injuns.”

What trick?’

“Grizzly Dan chuckled as he said: “Th’ red was right
yere at th’ end o’ this log—wi'in easy pistol shot of ye—.
th’ livelong night.”

“What's that!” cried Pawnee Bill and Wild Bill in
chorus. ae

“Kerrect. I kin show ye whar he lay. His rifle is thar;
it war bent so he couldn’t use it.””

“Then he crept back after we camped,” began Wild Bill.

“He was thar when ye reached this yere log,” declared
Grizzly Dan. “He stayed right thar. He didn’t have no
‘casion ter move——’ eee Dea

“Nonsense, old man!” cried Wild Bill. “We heard him
flying through the forest like a race horse.”

Again Grizzly Dan guffawed.

with

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

      

“NEW BU

“Thet’s. eggzactly it!” he cried. “Phet’s how he fooled
ye.. No Injun would have mistaken a four-legged runner
fer a. two-legged one.’

_. "I see!” interrupted Buffalo Bill, with disgust. “You
- believe he stopped right here, starting a wild animal whom
we heard——”

“A deer. Thar it. was lyin’ at the end o’ the log, It
started up.w'en th’ Igjun come along. He was all in, it’s
likely. He took the chance that white men would not
know -th’ diffrence betwixt four laigs an’ two. An’ you-
uns fell for hit—heh?” |

“We did, Grizzly Dan, we did!” adeaitted Buffalo Bill.

“Mebbe ole Nomad wouldn't ha’ been so easy fooled.
But he got you-uns easy,” said the hermit, with his mouth

full. “I reckon so. ! better go erfong back wi’ you boys
an’ put ye in Nomad’s keer. Ye ain’t ter be trusted erlone
NO,’ sir?”

His new friends took this rough raillery in good part.
And really Buffalo Bill was not aloof to accepting the
companionship of this strange forest. character. After
eating, Grizzly Dan went up the hill and led down again
a little, long-haired, scrubby-looking mustang, on which
he packed a goodly sack of jerked venison and other
provisions, and straddled the creature himself, his toes
nearly touching the ground as he sat the skin saddle.

Wild Bill said to him:

“You better git off and tote the horse—'twould look
mote humane, Dan.”

Nevertheless, the tough little beast carried the hermit
over the rough ground faster than the three scouts could
travel afoot. When they found their own mounts where
they had left them the afternoon before, the traveling was
‘more equal.

They merely followed the back track of the route they
had come the day before in chase of the Indian courier.
Buffalo Bill had explained to Grizzly Dan why they had
followed this single watrior instead of the gang that had
made the attack on the wagon train.

When they came to the place where the brave afoot had
broken away from the pony riders of his tribe, the party
dismounted and examined the vicinity for further signs
of the reds. There might be something which would
yield information regarding the band of savages.

“They was Ute, all right,” said Grizzly Dan thoughtfully.
“Thet thar critter my John settled proved thet thar——”

Wild Bill suddenly grabbed up his rifle and spun on the
ball of his right foot until he could draw bead upon a
thicket across the forest opening in which the quartet of
white men stood.

“What is it, Hickok?” demanded Buffalo Bill.
“Something moving there,’ whispered the Laramie man,
and Pawnee Bill picked up his own rifle.

‘But Grizzly Dan, after listening for a moment and wrin-
khing his nose like a dog catching the scent, put up a
restraining hand.

“Whup!’ he shouted. “Come out o’ thar!’

“The bushes parted and the ridiculous head of the half-
grown grizzly was thrust into the glade. The bear had
been down wind from the horses; but now the creatures
saw him, if they didn’t catch his scent, and all but Grizzly
Dan’s scrubby pony began to cut capers and had to be tied
to keep them from running away.

“Your friend is mighty attentive,” grumbled Wild Bill.
“But he'll sure get shot if he appears without you to take
his part, old man.”

The grizzly tamer grinned. “He'd trail ye for. days
wi'out you knowin’ it, Mr. Hickok—an’ if I told him te.
He wouldn’t ha’ showed up now——and he'd kep’ away from
th’ hosses—if I hadn’t been yere.’

“Nice comfortable feeling I’m going to have ieavelng
this country hereafter,” grumbled Wild Bill “By gerry!
Wait till, the baron sees that baby!”

At a command from the hermit the grizzly lay down
in a sunny place and patiently scratched himself, while the
four men continued to search the open ground.

As Buffalo Bill explained, a party of Utes had struck a
wagon camp on the trail to Lone Tree Gap, had butchered
the people, and made off in this direction. They were
mounted—but possibly only on the ponies and. wagon mules
_ Stolen. from. the wagon train, and there may not have. been

enough animals to go around. os

 

FFALO

7
4

 

BILL WEEKLY.

 

This wack Indian that they had chased the night before
had started afoot to take the news of the attack, and its
success, to either the village from which the war party had
started, or was to arouse other villages to join in a general
attack upon the whites.

It was possible that the approach of Major Pringle and
his force was already known to the attacking reds, and the
courier had been sent forth with the notification of the
approach of the walk-a-heaps. .

The party, after attacking the wagon sane had bivou-
acked here for a while. The signs of the encampment
were plain. Yonder was where the horses were hobb! led;
here the reds had built a fire and eaten of the provisions
stolen from the wagon.

There were many torn and soiled articles of apparel,
tying about, and the thing that made all four of the white
‘men look the most serious was the fact that some of these
garments belonged to women!

Tr hey had seen the bodies of two women—evidently_ emi-
grants’ wives—lying scalped by the wagon camp. ese
garments, of course, belonged to those poor dead crea-
tures.

Yet as Grizzly Dan went snuffing about the place, tke a
hound hunting the scent, he came suddenly to a stop and
let out a startling, inarticulate ‘yell. Fhe. others: ran’ to
him.

The old man stood over a certain place where the soil
was a trifle damp. He waved his arms aud kept the other
three trail hunters off.

‘What's struck you, friend?” demanded Buffalo Bill

“See! Look yonder, too!” growled the half-mad hermit.

His blunt finger pointed out the marks on the sol—
here and beyond and in a third place ahead. And those
marks were unmistakable.

“A woman’s foot!” whispered Pawnee Bill, his emotions
great indeed.

“Boughten shoes, by gorry |” added Wild Bill. —

“And she was running !” exclaimed Buffalo Bill.

‘A prisoner, néecarnis,” said Pawnee. “She was making
a break for liberty i

“But she did not escape,’ returned the king of scouts
confidently. “There is an Indian moccasin covering ‘her
footprint. One man chased her, and it is ey that he
easily caught her and Fale i her back.”

 

CHAPTER VI.
THE WAGON CAMP.

The trail from Fort Prevost to Lone Tree Gap dipped
down from the high plateaus over which its first course
lay into an enormous valley, or series of valleys divided
by low hills, all heavily wooded.

These foothills were full of game. They had been the
hunting grounds of the Mountain Ut tes time out of mind,
The trail made by. the white men’s wagon trains was a
detriment to the savage hunters, and well they knew it.

Whenever the redskins broke out and began raiding,
their bands of scalp hunters lay in wait beside this Lone
Tree Gap Trail for the wagon trains that more or less fre-

quently at certain times of the year passed through the

series of valleys. A great deal of freighting was -.done
over this trail, But as a usual thing the freight trains
were not disturbed by the red warriors.

The freight wagons were well guarded, and the men
who went with them—even the “mule skinners”—were old
Indian fighters and dead shots.

It was the emigrant trains that most frequently were
attacked by the Indians. Many of them were small—three
or four wagons only, with as many families, and possibly
not a man in the party who had ever seen a blanket Indian
before leaving home.

Such parties were most apt to fall before the attacks of
the reds. And the atrocities the Mountain Utes visited
tipon the unfortunate whites make a catalogue of ‘horrors
best not repeated here,

Traveling this trail down into the bottom lands were a
trio of riders on this morning, whose diverse oddities of
appearance made them more ee ordinarily interesting,

n the lead, straddling a pinto seddied with a half-worn
‘aolicln and bridled with rawhide in Indian fashion, rode
a wiry young savage, but wearing the eagle feather which

  
 

  
  

3) NEW -BUFFALO

announced to all the world that he was a warrior and
initiated into manhood by the mysteries of his tribe. He
was a Piute, with a keen, rather intelligent face, sparkling
eyes, and his bronzed skin so smooth and shiny that it
looked as though it were oiled.

Behind him rode a white man—but one only knew he
was white from his dress and speech. He was dressed
for the most part in buckskin, with a coonskin cap, and
was whiskered to his eyes, his hair falling down below
the fringed collar of his shirt. He was a typical back-
woodsman-and trapper, with an eye like an eéagle’s, yet
with humorous wrinkles about it that tempered its stern
glance. He was a bold, rugged man of some age, but as
tough as a pine knot!
In the rear there loafed along a big mouse-colored mule
with a wicked eye and ears like wind sails, and which
were the most expressive ears that ever a mule owned.
Just now they. drooped dismally, and as his head likewise
drooped, the ears nearly trailed in the dust of the path.

But the mule was nowhere near as great,an oddity as
the man who bestrode him. At a time and in a country
where the garments of pioneers and settlers were of the
plainest and most sensible for hard wear, here was a
“bizarre figure indeed! ~

In the first place, the mule’s rider was a thin-legged,
round-bodied person of pronotinced Teutonic countenance
rosy, fat face, yellow hair, eyes which almost “goggled,”
and a wisp of a mustache. His normal expression was
one of astonished innocence.

He. was rigged out in a little fore-and-aft cap, outing
suit made by a Berlin tailor with no idea of the needs of
one traveling in the American wilds, and his thin legs
incased in leggings. A more out-of-place figure could
scarcely be imagined. Nt
Frequently the young Indian looked around impatiently,
and even the trapper gave the Dutchman several inquiring
glances, finally demanding: -

“By the horned frogs o’ Texas! Kyan’t ye hurry thet
thar critter none at all, baron? The sun is fair stewin’
the ile out o’ me, an’ thar’s shade biow yander.”

“Ach, himmelblitzen!” groaned the man on the mule.
“T say, ‘Yes, ve vill hurry; budt nodt so Toofer. He iss
in dé moot gondemblative!”

“Tf he was my critter I’d kick him out o’ thet thar mood,.
sure—er [T’d frazzle his carcass out inter a doormat,”
growled the trapper. “How erbout it, Cayuse?”

“Wuht Mule heap no good,” grunted the Indian.

‘that touched .the Baron Villum von Schnitzenhauser
“on the raw.” He began to swell mightily, his little eyes
sparkled, and he was about to bubble out a protest in his
own private brand of English—a language that he.so
abused that the great Doctor Johnson would have fainted
had he heard it—-when suddenly Toofer stopped stock-
still, planting his forefeet as though to brace himself, and
threw his ears forward as though taking aim at some
object in the partially wooded valley below.

“Vait! Vait von moment!” gasped the baron. ‘“‘Toofer
sees someding—or he hears someding—or he schmells
someding———” '

“Er-waugh!” grunted the trapper. “You goin’ ter cata-
logue his other senses? Give his heels a chance. He looks
ter me like he was a-goin’ ter kick something.”

But the baron was serious. He shook his head and
stared straight on between the. mule’s ears, trying to see
that in the valley which he believed had been sensed by
the mule.

The Piute gazed, too, down into the valley under the
sharp of his hand. He began to mutter, and the trapper
accosted him: ;

“What's the matter, Little Cayuse? Ye aire surely ez
mysterious ez th’ mu-el.”

“Trouble down there—wuh!
- the Piute.

“Hello!” ejaculated the trapper. “Think ennythin’s hap-
pened ter Buffler and the other Bills? They aire sure
ahead of us somewhars on this trail.”

Here the baron broke in excitedly:
“Idt’s Inchuns! Su-ah idt iss Inchuns!

Heap trouble,’ muttered

Pe)

I know dot

Toofer iss nodt to pe fooled.” i
_ “Tnjuns, heh?’ grunted the trapper. “I bet Buffler ain’t
been jumped by no reds.” ;

 

 

BILL WEEKLY.

“You t'inks nodding can happenchance to Puffalo Pill,
Nomat,” said the baron. “But he undt Vild Pill unt
Bawnee Pill vos aheadt——” :

“And three mighty bad pills for Injuns ter swaller,”
declared the trapper. “Thar may be somebody else in trou-
ble, though.” a ee ee)

“Who?” ‘ ae (

“There’s a wagon train ahead of us. We knowed’ thet
thar when we left Fort Prevost. With the military comin’
in so soon, it ’u’d shown a hull lot o’ sense on th’ part o’
them same settlers ef they'd waited at Prevost an’ fol-
lered Major Pringle’s command into th’ hills, instead of
leadin’ the way themselves!”

“Py shiminidy! You vos righdt dere, Nomat.”

“These folks from back East ain’t never afraid enough
o’ Injuns—or else they aire too afraid,” grunted old
Nomad. “This yere party ahead proberbly seen er few old
squaws in dirty blankets, or er few lazy ‘breeds, an’ they
reckon ev'ry other Injun is like ’em.”

Just then the statuesque Piute came to sudden‘ life.

“Wuh! Heap trouble! Mebbyso Injuns there. once—
not know!”

Without another word, he spurred his pinto forward
and dashed down the incline toward the partially wooded
bottom lands. ee

“Come on, baron!” shouted Nomad. “Ef thet thar beast
won't kerry ye, git off an’ kerry him!” -

But the mule seemed desirous of following the two
horses. He started off after Nomad’s Hide Rack, and,
without the quirt, galloped at’a good pace down the trail.

The farther Little Cayuse went down into the valley,
the harder-he beat his pinto; and the drumming of the
pony’s feet led the procession ofthe three hard-riding
friends for five minutes. Then suddenly Little Cayuse
shot around the edge of a barrier of wood, and the next
moment all three pulled up in a bunch and within a few
yards of the wagon camp in the hollow, beside the stream

“where only a few hours before the Mountain Utes had
done their savage will. le

A heavy-winged vulture- rose and sailed away from
behind one of the wagons. The three could not at once
see what lay behind that wagon.| But. right before: their
horses’ hoofs lay an old white-haired, patriarchal-looking

man, grasping a broken gun in one hand, his head scalped
and bloody, and his other hand hacked off at the wrist.
But death had come from a bullet through his lungs, and
he had coughed a pool of blood from his lips where he
lay which had now soaked into the earth.

7

CHAPTER VII.
THE CALL TO ACTION.

_ The trio of discoverers commented, each in character-
istic way, upon this awful scene.

“Wuh! Heap bad!” grunted Little Cayuse, and swung
himself from the back of the pony. .

“Mein. gootness grasciousness!” stammered the baron.
“Vot a dreadtful, dreadtful t’ing idt iss—yah! De Inchuns
haf kill’t all of dem! Himmelblitzen!”

Old Nick Nomad swung himself out of the saddle, his
eyes blazing and the muscles of his jaw twitching.

“Curse them! The red devils have sure settled them
poor folks in a kentry they wasn’t a-lookin’ fur!’ was the
trapper’s observation.

He and Little Cayuse made a quick but exhaustive ex-
amination of the camp. Little Cayuse ran about quickly,
squinting at every footprint; but the old trapper saw few
signs that were not familiar to him. He had seen many
an abandoned camp like this! i ce ane

“Two poor wimmen!” he groaned to the baron, who for
once was speechless. “Thet thar’s whar it seems ter hurt
me most w’en I/sees er yeres of sick works asthis yere.
A wicked shame ter bring wimmen inter th’ Injun kentry

‘until th’ Injuns is all made good.”

“Ach, himmelblitzen! Meanin’ dot dey iss goodt. only
vien dey iss deadt!” exclaimed the baron. .

weet. so! Now, these Utes come down yere afoot.
They hid behind thet line of scrub yander—see?”

“Meppeso.” ee

“It’s sure so! Ain’t I right, Cayuse?”

“Heap right,’ admitted the Piute. “No ambush—wuh!”

 

 

  
 

oS AV SBUPEALO

“Naw! These folks thought they was pienickin’,’. grunted
Nomad, with disgust. “They makes their camp for the
night. Ye kin see how the waggins is spread out—-no.
close circle like they should be.”

“Dot vos righdt, py shimmeniddy!” . aa

“Fire built yonder. Wimmen gittin’ supper. Men loafin’
an’ smokin’. Mebbeso they didn’t hev their guns by ‘em,
even. Ba
. “Undt dey haf all peen dead-edt!’ groaned the. baron.

“Massacreed—fair massacreed!” exclaimed the fron-
tiersman, shaking his head.

“Undt vare iss Puffalo Pill undt Bawnee Pill undt Vild
Pill?’ demanded the baron. p

The Piute came back to them again, very much excited.

“Heap many Injuns,” he said, and spread his fingers on
both hands four times rapidly to show that there were
at least twoscore of the red scoundrels who had attacked
the wagon camp. :
- “Not ‘nough ponies—mules.
pony,’ added Little Cayuse. (

“And you reckon they didn’t take no prisoners?” asked
Nomad.

The Piute did not reply for a moment, but he beckoned
' the old trapper to follow him. At one side, near where
the horses had evidently been hobbled for the night, was
a damp piece of ground. It was a place that Buffalo Bill
and his two comrades, when they found the abandoned
camp, had overlooked in their haste to get after the
marauding reds.

In this piecé of damp earth the Piute pointed out the
clear imprint of a-small boot. It was that of a woman's
shoe—there could be no doubt of it. The baron, who had
come to look over their shoulders, exclaimed :

. “Vale, dot iss nodt so surbrising—yah? Dere vos two
vimmens yonder.” A

“But they were killed while they were getting supper
over the firé,” declared old Nomad.

Little Cayuse ran back again and soon reappeared with
a shoe taken from a foot of each of the dead women.
These shoes were both of too large a size to have made
the imprint in the earth.

“Ach! Dot iss terrible, yedt!” groaned the baron.

“A third female critter—poor thing!” said Nomad.
“And kerried erway, more than likely, by the red devils.”

“Put vare iss Puffalo. Pill?’ began the baron for a
second time.

_ “Wuh!” exclaimed Little Cayuse, holding up his hand

and then pointing in the direction the marauders had
plainly gone. “There um pony marks. Him show Pa-e-
has-ka, um major, um Wild Bill all same follow on.”

“T reckon thet thar’s so,” agreed Nomad. “Buffler would
likely light out arter them reds instanter. In course, they
got some start of him; but they’re ridin’ heavy—two reds
to a pony.”

“Undt vill ve foller on, likewise yedt?” asked the baron.
~“What good would that do?” objected Nomad. “They
was fur enough behind the reds; mebbeso they ain’t caught
up wi’ ’em yit! Now, wot chancet would we have?”

“Bud if dem redskins has gabtured a vomens ue

“And thet thar’s wot it looks like,” said Nomad gloomily.

Suddenly the Piute touched each of his companions
lightly on the arm. He was standing in a listening pos-
ture, and when he turned they saw that his face was alive
with emotion. He started away on a quick glide toward
their horses, and without question the baron and Nomad
followed him.

“The critter’s ears is keen,’ whispered Nomad. “He
hez stire hearn suthin’.”

And it was evident that old Toofer, the mule, had heard
—or otherwise distinguished—the approach of danger.
Toofer was facing the dense forest that stretched away
in a southerly directiofi through this valley, ears forward
and the whites of his wicked old eyés showing.

“Idt iss so!” breathed the baron. ‘“Toofer varns us—
py shiminy!”

The Piute made another motion to quiet the baron.

“Injuns?” whispered Nomad, standing beside Hide Rack,
ready to leap into the saddle.

“Wuh! Me not know,” grunted Little Cayuse softly.
“Somebody come—there!”

He pointed.. Suddenly the horses began to snort and

Two Injuns ride same

3

 

BIL WEEKLY. 7

paw. the ground. Toofer shifted his position uneasily, and
the baron grabbed the bridle.

“Whoa a leedle pit, Toofer!” he whispered. “Dond't
pe afraidt; I vill nodt ledt anyt’ing hur-rt you yedt!”

“Tt’s a beast of some kind, an’ don’t you fergit it!”
growled old Nomad, unlimbering his rifle. The next
instant he added: “It’s a b’ar, by th’ jumpin’ horned frogs
—it’s b’ar!” :

Even the Piute uttered a startled grunt when the dirty
gray head and shoulders of a bear was poked out of the
brush on the other side of the trail.

“Py shiminy Ghristmas!” coughed the baron, trying to
get at his rifle while still holding the nervous Toofer.

“Ole Ephraim, as I’m a sinner!” ejaculated’ Nomad.

And just then, as the old trapper and the Piute took
deadly aim at the forefront of the grizzly, a hoarse voice
in the brush shouted:

“Whup!. John, whup! Come yere, boy! To heel!”

The head of the young grizzly disappeared.. The next
moment an erect figure, but one that might have likewise
been taken for a bear, walked‘into the clearing. Directly
behind him reappeared the bear, following like a trained
hound!

“Glory ter Je-ru-sa-lem!” shouted old Nomad. “If yere
ain’t Grizzly Dan, then ye kin shoot me fer a buzzard!”

“Nick Nomad!” exclaimed the strange being who had
startled the three friends. “Is thet thar you? They ain't
ae you yet, then, an’ smoked yer ha’r over a wigwam

rer? \

“Not yet, old hoss!” declared. Nomad, hastening forward
to greet the man in bearskins. “Ye got the advantage of
ae that Dat ies a

“T dunno as it’s an advantage,’ growled the other.
“Howsomever, ye didn’t know no better than ter bring
me back ter this world w’en I was better off in the other.”

“Don’t say thet thar, old son!” cried Nomad, pumping
Grizzly Dan’s hand warmly. “Ye’re better nor a dozen
dead men yit.”

“T reckon I be,” grunted Dan dryly. “Thar’s been many
a dozen redskins gone over th’ Great Divide ter pay fer
thet thar scalp they got off me . Hello! Who's this
red scamp?”’

He jerked his rifle forward as quick as lightning and
drew bead on Little Cayuse, who had stepped into view.

“Hold on, Dan! He’s friendly. He’s Buffier Bill’s sworn
compadre. Cut out the shooting. Jefers-pelters! Wot
kind of a brute is this yere ye got?” And Nomad, finding
the half-grown grizzly snuffing at his moccasins, took a
sudden leap backward and pointed his rifle barrel at John.

The Indian, under Grizzly Dan’s gun, and the bear under
Nomad’s deadly aim, both stood calmly—the Piute with
his arms folded across his breast.

“Don’t shoot thet b’ar, Nick!” cried the hermit. ‘“He’s
ez inoffensive as er sucklin’-ca’f—'cept ter Injuns.”

“He’s jest like his master, then—heh?” returned Nomad, —
with a twinkle in his eye. “We'll call it er truce, old son.
You let the Piute erlone, an’ I'll keep my han’s off thet thar

 

grizzly. Er-waugh! Doncher let him snuffle. et my.
gaiters ag’in. It makes me narvous!”
“Whup! Git back, thar!” commanded Grizzly Dan, low-

ering his rifle and speaking to John. “Go Jay down!”

The bear shuffled away and the men became easier in
their minds, if the horses and the mule didn’t.

“T reckoned I’d ketch ye yereabouts,’ said the hermit.
“Ver friend figgered it out erbout right w’en he said ye'd
be yere.’’

“Hello!” exclaimed Nomad. “Then ye’ve seed Buffler?”

“T have,” acknowledged the hermit. i

Then he went on to repeat briefly the incidents of the
morning, and included in his story the adventures of the
three Bills the evening before.

“Cody and them two other fellers hez set off into the
hills arter them Injuns. They got a woman with ‘em,’
concluded Grizzly Dan..- :

“Wuh! Heap sure that so,” grunted Little Cayuse.

“The Piute found out erbout th’ female,” said Nomad
quickly, seeing that the half-mad hermit was inclined to
be angered by the Indian youth butting in. ‘And she’s
still with the reds? They didn’t kill her, Dan?”

“She was kerried off by the red scamps, all right,” said
the hermit. “And yer friends is on their trail. Now, it

 
10

 

struck me thet I know erbout whar they ite witnth’ for

“Sandeman Pie) ?” interposed Nomad quickly.

“Thet’s th’ place, Nick. Them Mountain Utes have got
big villages over beyond Sandeman, Cody says thar’s a
bilin’ of sogers on the way.”

“Some.”

“Waal, ye aire ter send oe that pizen Injun ye got
to tell Major Pritigle of this yefe massactree, ati’ ask him
ter bring up his pony sogers with a rush. Bring rea Cz
far ez Sandeman. Thar’s a branch trail from this yere
Lone Tree Gap Trail, ye know.”

“Thet thar’s so,” admitted Nomad.

“An’ we're ter bury the dead, an’ then light out arter the
derned Teds, too,” scourin’ this yere trail ahead of the
sogers, an jine forces with Cody at the pass—should
nothin’ pervent, ye understand.”

“Waugh grunted Nomad. “Them’s Buffler’s instruc-
oust.

“To a dot,- Nick,” replied Grizzly Dan.

“Then the quicker the better,” said Nomad, and turned
instantly to the Piute. In his own tongue he told the
youth the message Buffalo Bill had said.

“All right. Me do what Pa-e-has-ka say,” said Little
Cayuse, and instantly cinched his saddle tighter on the
pinto and in a minute was hitting the back trail.

“You an mé an’ this Dutch emigrant,” grunted Grizzly
Dan, “will clean up yere an’ then light out fer Sandeman
Pass—with John.”

“Himmelblitzen |” exclaimed the round-eyed baron, “Vos
dot bear to dravel mit us in de same gompany—heh >”

“tWhy not ?” ‘demanded Dan sharply. “He was born
yere; he ain't no furriner.”

“Yale,” replied the German, “neider iss Toofer from de
faderlandt; but he dond’t like dot Hans bear—nix !”

“He's” got, it on you thar, Dan,” chuckled old Nomad.
“Come on! Let's sit ter work, fellers. Ef Buffler sent for
us thar’s likely ter be. doin’s eround Sandeman Pass, and
we wanter git thar B fore th’ fun is all over.

CHAPTER VILL
THE SPY.

Comine down from the steep and heavily wooded heights
—a veritable backbone of bare rock at the top, lifting itself
into the clouds, and. snow-covered for six months of the
year—-was a narrow runway, or path, that branched off
ftom the wagon trail through the cafion known as Sande-
man Pass. To the north, and less than two hundred miles
distant, was Lone Tree Gap—-a mining town and pass like-
wise through the mountain chain, offering a trail more
easy to travel, but less direct through the range that
Sandeman.

This narrow path above mentioned, however, was not
even a horse path, It had probably ‘first been made by
wild creatures coming down from their lairs in the moun-
tainside to drink at a clear, narrow creek that flowed
through the first “dip,” or valley. Then the red savages
had used it in traveling to and from the plains, or certain
hunting grounds ; or, indeed, it may have been at some time
the most direct toad between two friendly Indian villages.

It was eatly morning, and traveling. the deeply worn
path, and at a steady wolf trop, was a single redskin. He
was stripped to his breechclout, eagle feather, and moc-
casins. There was a hatchet and knife in his belt, and
he carried a muzzle-loading rifle, powder horn, and bullet
pouch, And as he ran he scanned the path ahead, and the
openings in the forest, with swift but particular care.

He came down to. the creek and there halted, looking
quickly up and down the waterway and across to the far-
ther bank, It was too wide a stream to be leaped, but not
too deep to be forded easily. There was no path opening
directly opposite the spot where the redskin stood.

Now the soil of the runway was’ so packed by the pres-
‘sure of many, many feet and the action of the water in
heavy. rains that the Indian’s moccasins left no mark in it.
An enemy coming this way would never have known that
the savage warrior had passed.

But af “he stepped down into the stream, or stepped out
of the beaten path, he was very likely to leave some trace
that could easily be read by an enemy, either red or white.

 

   

NEW - BUFFALO BILL WEEKLY '

   

"It was because of ‘his ‘that the fond Indien eave e the great.
est care to his subsequent movements. -

The bank of the creek was rather: high and ‘steep, for
this was not the season of floods. There was no project-
ing rock or bowlder upon this sidé of the ‘creek.

Wheetote the Indian was forced to step down tipon: the
immediate shore of the stream before entéring the water.
There was no escaping this. If he leaped into ‘the water
from the top of the bank where the runway ended,: he
would be likely to so disturb the gravel and sand beneath
the water that the first person paSsing this way would. read

the trace of his passing as plain as print.

‘A few yards back from the water the red had passed a
huge birch tree, the bark of which hung from the trunk
like the rags of a beggar. He stepped swiftly to this place
and loosened from the tree a broad strip. This he carried
to the bank of the creek and dropped carefully upon the
sandy shore, then stepped so lightly. upon it, and thence
into the water, that he left no indentation on the sand.

When he picked up the sheet of bark the mark of it
was so indefinite that it would scarcely attract a passing
glance even from a red trail hunter. The- lone Ute—for
he belonged to that mountain tribe—waded carefully. down
the stream for several rods, gradually crossing it from
right to left. And he neither left a print of foot in the
bed of the stream or roiled the water at all.

For he stepped upon the rocks that here and there pushed
their heads through the gravel and sand that otherwise
made up the creek’s bed.

At length he came to a great flat rock that projected
from the farther side of the stream. Back of that rock
lay a bit of hard ground, as the redskin could see—the
beginning of a steep hillside, indeed. The ground.on that
side of the creek was, for some distance, much steeper and
rougher ‘than the hillside down which the red had just
descended by. the ancient path,

Eagerly the brave moved toward this flat bewlder which
lay with its top just out-of the water. So eager’ was he
that he made a single misstep. He put his tight foot.on
a slippery stone, and, as he bore his full weight upon it,
the stone turned and the foot slipped.

He threw out his empty left hand and caught a frond
of green leaves and twigs that overhung the brook. It
was quite an involuntary motion, but natural enough in
the circumstances. He recovered his balance almost im
stantly; but the broken twigs and green leaves had slipped
through his hand and were now drifting down the cutrent.

it was a small thing, yet it plainly troubled the mind of
the red man, He had voluntarily set the sheet of bark
afloat when he was done with it; but there was more of
such flotsam in the stream and it did not matter. But
the red looked anxiously after the freshly torn leaves and
broken twigs, muttering a-charm in his own guttural
tongue. Evidently he felt the mischance to be “bad. medi-
cine,

But he could not undo what he had already done, The
greens bobbed quickly out of sight around the first bend
in the creek, and the Indian stepped firmly out upon the
flat rock, He was wet halfway to his thighs, and. the
mountain current was nearly ice cold despite the warmth
of the day

Flowever, so inured was the savage to all temperatures
that he did not even shiver, nor did the “gooseflesh,” so
called, stand upon his body. He stood for a few moments
to let the water drain from his moccasins; then he started
directly up the rough slope of the hill before him,

For an hour he climbed steadily. He had no path to
guide him, but took probably the shortest line for the reg-
ular Sandernan- Pass) Tratt:

At last he ¢catne out upon a wooded bluff, which fell
away steeply for sixty feet or more, and there the well-
defined trail lay at the foot of this blu, He could catch
glimpses of the trail to the. eee for halt. a mile and.
more,

He lay down, drew from a pede ce some parched
maize, and ate this instead of a heartier brealcfast.. He
evidently could not light a fire and cook game, although, the
forest was well stocked ae small creatures that | he might
easily kill,

He was on the wekele: ; it was ins duty to spy upoi: yh:

_ ever came over the wagon trail below. He had been sent

 

 

 

 

 

  
 

 

 

 

 

  

back, in fact, by the raiding band that had jumped the
emigrant train and carried off a female prisoner, to see
if there was any pues by the Sandeman Trail.

For their village lay beyond the pass in the western val-
ley. They had heard in a roundabout way that a force
of soldiers was to be sent into the hills from Fort Prevost,
and it was the reds’ desire to keep tabs on any such move-
ment against their freedom of action.

If the soldiers were merely “walk-a-heaps” the redskins
did not care; but the pony soldiers they feared, and—
above all—they feared some of the scouting parties made
up of old Indiah fighters who knew best how to strike
terror to the very souls of the red bucks.

It was, therefore, a very much excited redskin that sud-
denly beheld on the trail, and coming from the east, a cav-
alcade of three white men.

They were old Nick Nomad, the baron, and Grizzly Dan,
who, since the previous day, had got this far on their jour-
ney to the Sandeman Pass. They had seen no signs of
Indians, and were jogging along easily, Grizzly Dan ahead
on his shaggy pony, expecting to meet Buffalo Bill and his
party—or find signs of theém—at the mouth of the pass
before evening.

Their appearance, and the fact that there seemed to be
but three of the mounted white men, gave the red in
hiding a great deal of satisfaction. He cowered closer to
the earth, examined his rifle, recapped it, and made prepa-
ration indeed to give the trio on the trail below a hot
reception when they should come near enough for: his
ancient firearm to do execution.

He had selected a sheltered place in which he lay easily
and perfectly hidden from the. trail below. All he had
to do was to lift his head and shoulders, sight along the
barrel of the rifle, and pull the trigger. At a certain spot
in the trail the leading white man would be sure to come
into range, and with ordinary good fortune the redskin
would shoot him and.be utterly unseen himself by the
other members of the trio.

It looked very much as though Grizzly Dan, the half-
mad hermit of the mountains, was elected for sudden 'trans-
portation from this world to the next.

CHAPTER IX.
A GAME OF TAG.

Buffalo Rill and his two pards, Major Lillie and Bill
Hickok, had followed closely the pony tracks of the party
of Utes that had struck the wagon train and then run
off with the white woman. It was plain that there were
more Indians than horses, and therefore the party of reds
had moved slowly. The scouts hoped at first that despite
the reds’ long start, the war party might be overtaken
before they got into the cafion and so crossed into the
valleys beyond the high backbone of the Rockies.

Nor did the reds travel in a very straight line toward
the Sandeman Pass. There was good reason for that.
The country was so rough that the stock they had stolen
could not be taken but by many detours.

Realizing this, the Bills might have used short cuts now
and then; but Cody thought it best not to do so.

“The scamps might have left one or two, or even more,
of their number.to watch the trail. We want to know this
—capture the spies, if possible; so we will stick to the
track,” he said.

“They will be more likely to get into the cafion ahead
of us, then,” said Pawnee Bill. “Did you think of that pos-
sibility, necarnis?”

4 a most certainly did. And it is what we want them to
oO. :
“Get into the cafion ahead of us?” cried Wild Bill.

“That's 1,”

“But why?” demanded the Laramie man.

“IT want every one of these scoundrelly Utes to be chased
back beyond the range,” declared the famous scout sharply.
‘“T want them to be collected in their villages when. Major
' Pringle gets on the field. And for their murderous work
along the trails I want to see them severely punished by
the soldiery.”

“On-she-ma-da!” ejaculated Pawnee Bill.
just right, necarnis!” “

NEW BUFFALO

“ain't you

 

BILL WRERLY, il

“All right. I’d be glad to see ’em wiped out—the whole
tribe,” grunted Wild Bill Hickok.

“They have got to be rounded up and taught their place,”
declared Buffalo Bill sternly. ‘They have really less to
complain of than most tribes. They have been let alone,
and if their hunting grounds are being curtailed they still
have much territory over which they can roam in freedom.
They must be taught a lesson—and through them the entire
Ute nation.”

“T reckoned they weren’t near so bloodthirsty as the
Sioux,” said the Laramie man.

“All reds are bloodthirsty—if they dare to be. That is,
when their temper is riled,” declared Major Lillie.

“You are correct, Gordon,” agreed the chief scout. “But
these Utes have been kept in leash by such men as Colorow
and Chief Joseph. They will break out in this way now
and then; and this is one of the times when I hope they
will be punished in a way that will make them behave for
a long time to come.

“Emigrants are stire coming into these valleys, and the
reds have got to behave themselves, or move on where they
won’t be so comfortable.”

“And yet, old son, you wouldn’t stand to have the reds
chased out of the Rosebud reservation,” chuckled Major
Lillie.

“Nor would you!’ cried Buffalo Bill quickly, “The red-
skins were on their rights there.” Ne

“Shades of Unk-tee-hee! That is so, Pa-e-has-ka,” ad-
mitted Pawnee Bill.

As we have seen, the distance to Sandeman Pass was
considerable, the way very rough, and it was morning of
the second day after parting from Grizzly Dan that the
three Bills came to a creek that Buffalo Bill knew flowed
past and within a few miles of the mouth of the cafion
in which he believed the war party of Utes had taker
refuge.

It was not yet mid-forenoon when the three scouts came
to the brookside. The trail of the ponies was plain enough
here. It ascended through a deep ravine on the western
side of the stream and turned north.

‘We're mighty near Sandeman Pass,” stated Buffalo
Bill to his cronies,

“Then we want to keep our peepers skinned, by gorry!”
exclaimed Hickok.

Pawnee Bill refrained from speaking, but as Hickok was
about to let his horse descend the bank into the ford to
drink the bowie man waved him back.

“Hello! “What’s up, Pawhee?” demanded the Laramie
man.

Buffalo Bill looked at his friend with curiosity, too.
The major was staring upstream, and his countenance
was slowly flushing with excitement. Buffalo Bill knew
that his friend was seriously moved, but at the moment he
did not know why. The impatient Hickok demanded: >

“What's eatin’ of you, Lillie? Yer p'inting like a setter
pup.”

“Sh!” breathed the bowie man, holding up his. hand
again. Then he pointed quickly. “See that stuff in the
current, necarnis? What do-you say?”

Instantly the sharp eyes of Buffalo Bill had descried that
which had startled\ his friend. Floating upon the swiit
current were freshly broken twigs and a big handful of
green leaves. There was other flotsam—bark and dead
leaves and the like; but this stuff had been torn from
some overhanging tree within a few moments.

Now, the leaves were not:of a character to attract any
browsing animal, and they could not have been torn from
the parent stem by any beast of the forest. Man’s work
—man’s hand! That was the fact that had startled Paw-
nee Bill and now held the chief scout’s attention.

“Back from the water, boys, and tie your horses!’ said
Buffalo Bill in a low voice, and immediately alighted from
his own steed.

Even Hickok stopped asking questions when he saw
those floating leaves and twigs. He knew without being
told that somebody'had either crossed the creek not far
above this spot, or had stood upon the bank and cast the
broken twigs into the current.

No person, either red or white, would likely do such a
thing purposely. In the wilds travelers are very careful

   
 

12 : ) NEW BUFFALO

about attracting attention to themselves. This was a sign
that could not be overlooked or passed by unexamined.

The three friends quickly hid their steeds in a thicket and
tied them, Then, relieved of their rifles, but with pistols
and knives in belt, they came back to ‘the edge of the
water.

No more greens floated down; but Buffalo Bill signed
the others to follow, and he stepped into the stream.

As the water was shallow near the bank, and at the
moment they were not desirous of hiding their own trail,
the three did not need to go over their boot tops.

The main reason for Buffalo Bill leading the way up-
stream was because he wished to learn if there was a ford
above by which the Indians could execute a flank move-
ment—and perhaps fool their pursuers.

With every sense alert, and wading so carefully that
they made absolutely no sound, the three white men pro-
gressed at a satisfactory pace up the stream. They roiled
the water enough, and left footprints in the sand and
gravel; but they were not fugitives. They did not care
for the moment, believing that all the reds were ahead of
them. Unless, of course, the person who had thrown the
leaves into the stream were an Indian.

They waded on, rod after rod, turned innumerable
bends, but all the time approaching—as they very well
knew—the wagon trail which led up to Sandeman Pass.

Suddenly Buffalo Bill, who was in the lead, halted beside
a broad, flat-topped rock on the right-hand side of the
stream and thrust some distance into it: It was a perfectly
dry rock on top, kind of a sandstone, and there were
peculiar marks or veins across it.

“What’s the matter?” whispered Hickok from the rear.
“Them are fancy marks——”

“By the holy poker!” exclaimed Pawnee Bill under his
breath—for the chief scout had wet his hand and begun
to wipe the marks on the stone from sight.

“By gorry!” ejaculated Wild Bill. “What does it mean?”

“Somebody got out of the water here, and these lines
were made by the muddy water running off his carcass,”
said Buffalo Bill, with confidence. “Yes! See that broken
branch yonder? That was where the leaves and twigs
were torn from the branch and fell into the stream.”

“Red or white?’ demanded Pawnee Bill.

*That’s the question. Most likely red. Most likely one
of the Utes, nosing about here to see if the band is being
trailed by anybody,” returned Buffalo Bill wisely.

“Which way did he go, d’ye think, pard?” asked Wild
Bill quickly.

“Fie left the stream here, it seems. We have seen no
signs of him below; therefore it is pretty safe to figure that
he came downstream. Come on!”

Buffalo Bill stepped upon the flat rock himself and so
gained the bank. The steep hillside was right before them.
He scrutinized the hard earth directly above the rock, and
ey found marks which told him a tman had climbed the
bank.

Here a stone was overturned; there an exposed root was
lately pulled farther out of the earth. His friends saw
that these marks told but one story, and all three of them
started up the hill.

They had gone but a short distance when they stopped
as by common consent, halted by the same sound. Some-
where above—and.it sounded very distant—the report of
a gun echoed thinly down the forest glades.

CHAPTER  X.
THE UNEXPECTED ACTOR.

The baron and the two woodsmen were traveling the
gm Trail rather carelessly, if the truth were to be
told.

Old Nomad was not one to be unwary; and Grizzly Dan
was usually as suspicious as an old maid in a strange hotel
at night. But since leaving the wagon camp they had not
seen a sign of Indians, and their nearness to the spot where
they expected to meet Buffalo Bill perhaps made them
discount danger.

Besides, rambling about them—-and much to the nervous
apprehension of TYoofer and Hide Rack—was that pet

cf Grizzly Dan that the hermit pee could’ smell an
ee for half a mile.

BILL WEEKLA

That statement might or might not be true; perhaps
John Grizzly would have smelled out the spy had ‘the latter
been down beside the trail, The first. announcement that
the party had of the presence of an enemy, however, was
when, on rounding a clump of brush, Grizzly Dan’s cap
suddenly was torn from his head and 2 hot bullet scorched
his ear, but did him no other damage.

The report sounded instantly, and a puff of smoke at
the brink of the bluff showed where the enemy was hid,
All three saw the spot, and all three backed their mounts
into the chaparral, out of sight.

“They're ready for us, by gum!” cried Dan.

“This yere ain’t no ambush,” said Nomad quickly.
“That's jest one of’ th’ red scamps, proberbly. Now he
may run an’ tell the others we're comin’
: “Not so likely,” grunted the hermit. “Ef he was jest
spyin’ on us he'd kep’ still an’ th’ hull crowd would ha’ fell
on us.’

“Thet might be,” admitted Nomad.

“This yere is some fresh buck wot’s started out ter
make a name fer himself-——’

He was interrupted by the explosion of the baron’s rifle.
The baron had not said a word, but he had been watching.
He had seen an eagle feather. appear above a fringe of
brush on the top of the bluff. He knew that an Indian’s
head was just under that feather, and he had whanged
away at a point just below it.

The feather disappeared, but undoubtedly the Karis.

ullet was wasted.

“Py shiminy Ghristmas!” croaked the baron. “Ef dot
chumb of a Inchun monkeys mit lookin’ down here again
vonce, I vill punctuade him mit a pullet—su-ah!”

“Keep quiet, you Dutch emigrant ! !” snarled Grizzly Dan.
“Want ter drive him out o’ thar?”

“Vale, undt vy nod?” gasped the hapless German.

“Because we want to catch him, of course. If you drive
him away, ye ‘tarnal fool, we won’t know who he is, nor
who he’s workin’ for,”

The baron subsided. Said Nomad:

“What's yer plan, old buck?”

“You leave it’ ter me,” growled Grizzly Dan. “You an’
th’ furriner stay yere an’ watch thet he don’t come down
th’ bluff. Me an’ John will go up an’ drive him out o’
cover—ye bet!”

“T’ll improve on that thar, Dan,” said Nomad. “I'll sneak
erlong yere an’ git betwixt him an’ th’ cafion. Then I'll
‘come up th’ bluff, too, an’ if he gits erway from both of
us he'll haf ter do it by flyin’ —an’ at that, th’ baron is a
purty good shot on th’ wing.’

“T will do idt,” declared the baron, with confidence. “Ef
dot Inchun shows himselluf de bluff ofer, I vill spob him
on de tobnod alretty !”

The two old woodsmen departed through the under-
brush, leaving their mounts in the baron’s care. He never
lost sight of the spot where the eagle feather had once
appeared, but whether the spy remained there or not he
did not know.

Old Nomad skirted the trail, there being. good cover for
a quarter of a mile, and so reached a place at last where
he dared start to climb up the face of the rough hill. He
was then much beyond the spot from which the Indian
had fired at Grizzly Dan. ~

The latter, meanwhile, plunged into the brush likewise
and was quickly joined ‘by the half-grown grizzly which
had easily kept up with the scouts in their leisurely journey
along the trail.

The hermit talked to the beast as though he were a
familiar spirit, and, whether John understood him or not,
he acted as though ‘he did. He scrambled up the hill after
the man, snuffing at his heels and occasionally growling.
But Grizz ly Dan stopped that very soon.

“Whup! Shut up, you!” he commanded, and struck.
the beast over the nose with the butt of his pistol,

The bear retired to a safer distance, but refrained from
vocal observations thereafter. He did not let Grizzly Dan
get out of his sight, however. |

The half-mad hermit came to the top of the hill long
before Nomad got there. And he waited for no assistance
from anybody. Making his way as soft-footed as a cat
through the forest, he came upon the Indian’s position
from the rear.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
    

 

 

 

  

Meanwhile the disappointed redskin had lain very quietly
after the baron had expended a single bullet on him. The
spy knew hé had failed in his attempt to shoot the leading
white man. Indeed, he had recognized that leading w hite
at the moment he was pressing the trigger of his rifle—
and the shack the discovery gave him undoubtedly ex-
plained his bad shot, for the distance was not great.

The Indians who ‘knew Grizzly Dan at all believed him
to be “touched by the finger of the Great Spirit,’ and they
‘likewise believed him to ‘bear a charmed life.

Indians are very superstitious about those who are in-
sane or deaf and dumb. They believe that the spirits have
marked such for their own and that no man should inter-
fere with such unfortunates,

In Grizzly Dan’s case, too, the reds feared him as they
| feared the devil.

They had seen the hermit run amuck against a score
of reds and strike down ‘several without being harmed
himself. The fact that he trained the ferocious grizzly of
the mountains to come at his beck and call was another
thing that proved to the redskins that Grizzly Dan was
superhuman,

- And now the spy lay cowering on the top of the bluff,
‘muttering charms against the power of the being whom
he had inadvertently shot at. Afl the while the hermit was
creeping on the red from the rear.

It was no sound that Grizzly Dan or his brute com-
panion made, but some slight noise of Nomad’s that finally
startled the redskin. He rose up and tried to peer down
the hill in the direction from which Nomad was coming.

Instantly the baron, watchful as he sat his mule in the
covert below, spat another bullet from his rifle, and this
time the lead scorched the red man’s check.

He leaped back with a yell. Instantly there was an
answering shout from Grizzly Dan, who heaved up his
 shagey body from the brush and made at the redskin as
though to. seize him in his hands.

If the red had reloaded his rifle, he did not stop to use
it. Recognizing the.madman, he flung away his gun and
tried to dodge his antagonist. Dan was not quite quick
enough, so he gripped his pistol and fired. The ball entered
the red’s shoulder and he screeched again.

But he did not stop running. Bounding away from, in-
stead of toward, the edge of the bluff, he tried to retrace

‘his steps toward the creek. But just then Nomad came

over the brow of the hill from the trail and took a pot
shot’at the running redskin. .

Although the bullet missed him, the scoundrel turned
farther from the brink of the hill; and as he plunged down
the longer, ‘easier slope there came st uddenly a shout from
almost in his front.

It was the well-known war cry of Buffalo Bill, the
famous scout. Mingled with it were the eerie yell of
Pawnee Bill—Kulux-Kittybux of the Pawnees—and the
cowboy yell of Wild Bill Hickok.

Nomad recognized these calls and raised his own par-
ticular. war whoop. Grizzly Dan was silent, but he was
almost on the heels of the redskin as the latter swerved
still farther to the left.

Down the hill the red plunged, tearing wildly through
the brush, leaping logs and rocks, recking neither life nor
limb in his mad attempt to escape the determined white
men.

He may have known the ground well; but no better
than Grizzly Dan, who had spent the best of six years
traveling these hills. The old hermit’s step was as sure
as that of the Indian’s own, and, although his stride was
not so great, the red was hampered by his wounded
shoulder.

Grizzly Dan was gaining steadily on the fugitive, but
the trees were too thick for him to risk another shot:
Suddenly he uttered a raucous shout:

“Whup! Whup, thar, John! Git him, boy!’

His quick little. eyes had caught sight of the shambling
figure of the half-grown grizzly in the underbrush. His
shout spurred the beast fo dart out into the clearer ground
and take after the already terrified redskin.

The latter threw one swift glance over his shoulder, saw
a Coming and uttered a shriek like that of a lost
sou

And indeed the. ‘redskin was lost itiwas a downhill

   

NEW. BUPFALO

BILL WEERLY, 13:

 

race, and the bear with his short forelegs was at a little
disadvantage; but the red was already breathing heavily,
and his swinging, useless arm interfered much with his
running.

Besides, through the more open forest on his right hand
the Indian saw Buffalo Bill and his two cotnrades appear.
They were hedging him in from that direction.

The hunted fugitive swerved more to the left, and sud-
denly came out upon the open verge of a pit—a pit. perhaps
an eighth of an acre in area and with sheer sides.

Two or three huge trees grew in the pit, which was
some forty feet deep, and its bottom mostly rock-covered.
The Indian, seeing the bear almost upon him, and unable
to run farther, made a most desperate attempt to escape

’ instant death.

He leaped for the nearest branch of the nearest tree
growing in the sink. He missed this, but, slipping through
the leaves, got a grip on the branch below and hung there.

Old Grizzly Dan, coming to the edge of the pit, yelled
excitedly to John, ‘the bear:

“Whup, thar! Aiter him, John!”

With a frightful growl, the beast hurled himself into
the branches of the same tree. The branches he first struck
would nat hold the grizzly’s great weight; but, as he
slumped through them, he caught on other and larger
limbs, and so, bumping from course to course of the
branches, finally dropped safely to the ground, unhurt.

And down upon the brute, shaken from his precarious
hold by the bear’s descent through the tree, fell the
wounded Indian !

CHAPTER’ XI.
PAWNEE BILL’S ATTEMPT.

While Grizzly Dan was ghost dancing on the edge of
the pit and yelling to his pet grizzly, Buffalo Bill and his
comrades, including old Nomad, rushed down to the verge
of the sink, too.

Phe place was a tevelation to them all. Even Nomad
had not known of such an’ odd formation in the hills,

Before the wounded Indian had slipped through the
broken tree branches and landed upon the bear’s back the
oe scouts had seen and appreciated the en of this |

a looked at once as though the redskin was trapped.
The red leaped, with a shriek, from the bear’s carcass and
climbed a bowlder near the center of the pit. And before
the brute could follow him there was a quite unexpected
occurrence.

Out of the den at the foot of the sheer wall below the
position of the scout and his friends appeared another bear
—a beast vastly larger than John. He uttered a challeng-
ing roar and jumbered toward the newcomer in the pit.
John was forced to leave the scrambling redskin and air
his attention to this new antagonist.

For the bigger brute meant business. A trespassér upon
his preservés was not welcome, and it very soon appeared
why this Was so.

“By gorry! He’s got a regular harem thar!” cried Wild
Bill.

Out of the cave behind the challenging male appeared
two well-grown female grizzlies. They waddled forth,
evidently with the expectation of seeing their lord and
master “do up’ the interloper. i

“By the sacred O-zu-ha!” ejaculated Pawnee Bill. “And
not a rifle among us! Pistol balls would only tickle those
babies.”

“W hup 1” shouted Grizzly Dan.
critters. Let ’em fight it out.”

“Old son, wot dye know erbout this yere?” demanded
Nick Nomad, eying Dan suspiciously... “This pit ain’t so
strange ter ye, is it?”

The half-mad hermit revealed one of his fearful grins
-and chuckled in a ghastly manner.

“Ain't et fine?” he cackled. “The redskin kin wait thar
till them bears sees which is th’ better ; then th’ victor will
polish off Mr. Injun at his: leisure.”

“Oh, by thunder, necarnis! I can’t see that—even to a
redskin !” exclaimed Pawnee Bill,

“You know all about this place, Dan?” asked Buffalo
Bill sternly.

“T ought ter.

“Doncher shoot them

I found the tunnel wot leads inter thet .

   
14 NEW. BUFFALO

thar pit,’ declared the hermit proudly. “I stoppered up
th’ fur eend of it. Them b’ars has ter stay thar—an’ wot
they gits ter eat mostly falls down the rocks to ’em, like
thet Injun did!’ And he began to cackle again.

Just then the two male grizzlies came together with a

roar that shook the atmosphere and echoed again and again
among the rocks. It was a fierce fight for a minute.

Then John got a bat across. the neck and face that
seemed to spell “enough” for him. He swung away from
the other angry brute and lumbered around to the other
side of the rock on which was perched the redskin.

He paid no attention to the redskin for the moment,
however. For the first time John seemed to descry the
female bears. He had not known that there were “ladies
“present.” (

John shuffled forward and nosed the nearest female —

amicably. She evidently returned his sudden friendship,
and they were nose to nose when the outraged boss of the
pit saw them and charged into the téte-da-téte. \

With one ferocious blow he knocked the lady end for
end; and then, roaring like the escape valve of a loco-
motive, he plunged into John’s arms. Heretofore the
half-tamed grizzly had not put his heart into the fight.
- But he evidently went in now with chivalrous feelings and
some degree of temper.

He hugged’ the larger bear in a way to crack his ribs;
and then, when they “went to the carpet” together, John
slipped out of the other’s embrace and dealt him several
raking blows that slit his antagonist’s hide along his face
and neck and made the blood flow rapidly.

And John came within an ace of fastening his teeth in
the throat of the bigger brute. The latter backed away,
whined a bit, and then, roaring and frothing at the mouth,
pitched into the younger bear again.

But John’s youth and vigor told. The weight of the
other beast did not count when once the younger animal
was fully aroused.

From the edge of the pit Grizzly Dan whooped his pet .

to victory. It was a sight, too, to hold the breathless atten-
tion of the other four white men on the rocky heights.

John belabored his enemy all around the pit, and the
two females seemed to take delight in seeing their old
boss put out of the ring at last. Especially did the young
female who had gotten her ears boxed seem to enjoy the
punishment meted out to the bigger bear..

John had him on the run. Their roarings echoed and
reéchoed in the cup of the mountains. No arena battle
ever held the attention of an audience more closely. ~

Back and forth the huge bears raged, biting, snarling,
striking at each other with terrific earnestness. Blood-
maddened, nothing but the death of one or the other could
end the battle.

And then what would befall the redskin, crouched like
a frog on a lily pad at the top of the small bowlder on
which he. had taken refuge at the beginning of the fight?

Some of the whites had time to give the red not only
a glance, but a thought.

He was a young brave. He could not have been much
older than Little Cayuse. He was already wounded, and
his left arm hung useless at his side, although he had
plugged the bullet hole with something and so stopped the
blood from flowing.

He watched the battle between the bears with a keener
interest than the white men, for it looked as though when
the fight was decided the winner would turn his attention
immediately to the single human being in reach.

“That red is going to have the time ‘of his life in a few
minutes, necarnis,” whispered Pawnee Bill to his friend.
“Poor devil!’

“I believe you, Gordon, This crazy fellow and his bears ©

have certainly brought the Ute to a bad pass.”

“I’m not feeling like watching the red torn limb from
limb—and that’s what will happen,” repeated Pawnee Bill
in the same low voice. ;
“The best we can do is to shoot him,” muttered Buffalo
Bill. ts

“What! The red?”

“We can’t kill the bears very well with these popguns,”
returned Buffalo Bill.

_ “On-she-ma-da!” ejaculated Pawnee, “The red made a
good fight for his life. It’s a blamed shame to——’

BILL. WEREERLY.

“You getting tender-hearted’ about an Indian, Lillie?”
queried Buffalo Bill.

“But m this case, necarnis, he might be worth more to
us alive than dead—like that fellow we chased the other
day. If we could get one of these Utes to talking——”

“T agree with you, Gordon,” exclaimed Buffalo. Bill
quickly, “He ought to be captured alive. But how?”

“Come this way, Pard Cody,’ said the bowie man, and

started along the edge of the wall on which they stood.

The others were so interested in what went on below

‘that they did not notice the departure of the two friends.

Pawnee Bill’s sharp eyes had been scrutinizing the sur-
roundings more particularly than they had the gory battle
in the pit. Now he showed his comrade the limb of
another tree in reach, the roots of which were in the bot-
tom of the pit.

“T can swing over there, necarnis, climb down to that
lower, longer limb, and my weight will swing that lower
limb out over the redskin’s head. D’ye see it, pard?”

“It’s a dangerous undertaking, Lillie. I don’t believe
I can approve,” said Buffalo Bill slowly.

“But you agree with me that the red ought to be saved?”

“Great heavens, yes! I wouldn’t want to see him man-
gled by the bears. I'd shoot him myself first,’ declared
Buffalo Bill. a

“But he might be worth more to us alive.”

“Which is true enough, Gordon.”

“Then I’m going to make a dab at it,” said Pawnee Bill
cheerfully. .

“T wouldn’t, Gordon.”

“You don’t forbid, necarnis?” returned the other quietly,
for he was under the older scout’s command and was will-
ing to obey his superior officer..

“I do not forbid it, major. And if you go into that tree
I go with you.”

“On-she-ma-da !
doings, necarnis.”

-“Well, V'll stand by and give you a hand if you chance
to need it,” declared Buffalo Bill firmly.

“Then here goes!” exclaimed the bowie man; and the
next instant he swung out into the tree.

Beneath him the bears were roaring and Battling like
gladiators in the ring. Nomad and Wild Bill uttered sur-
prised yells and ran toward the spot. But before they
reached the tree, Buffalo Bill was likewise in it and was
climbing down after his friend.

“By mighty!” yelled the old trapper.
tryin’ ter do?”

“Pawnee’s going to try and save the red,” returned
Buffalo Bill calmly. “Remain where you are.”

“By gorry! You've got to do it quick, then,” declared
Wild Bill. “For there goes the old-man bear!”

He was right. At that instant the younger grizzly
jumped in, bore his antagonist fo the ground, and sank Lis
teeth in the throat of the larger animal.

The latter was already done for. The muzzle of 1is
enemy, tearing at his windpipe and arteries, settled the
whole matter in ten seconds.

The huge brute, bedabbled in its own and its enemy’s
blood, rolled over, dead. John, roaring a pan of victory,
rose up and shook the blood from his muzzle,

His wicked red eyes caught sight of the Indian atop
the bowlder not five yards away. Instantly he lumbered
across to the rock, rose up on his hind legs again, and
made a pass at the poor, shivering Ute that came within

I didn’t intend to rope you into such

“Wot aire ye boys

an ace of reaching him!

CHAPTER XIb..
THE GIANT SWING.

“Whup—yah!” yelled Grizzly Dan, crow hopping like
a drunken Sioux. “Ketch holt on him, John!”

It was likely now that John, the grizzly, was not paying
the least attention to his old master, for he had got beyond
Dan’s control. "He was, in fact, his own man, and bent
only upon showing the wives that he had secured in single
combat that he was “heap big Injun!” ;

But Dan’s yell made Pawnee Bill so mad that had he
not discarded his pistols when he leaped into the tree he
would have heen tempted to take a shot at him.

“Hear that old son of a gun!” he grunted to Buffalo

 

 
  

 

 

 

 

 

f£alo> Bill stood.

Bill “Just as we are going to—— Ak!. Look, necarnis!
- That/beast will have the poor devil in a second or two!”
Pawnee Bill flung ‘himself conto the branch which
sprouied: from: the bole Ps the tree just about whére Buf-

it was a long and drooping branch, and
the weight of the bowie. sun bent it so that the end fronds

_ almost swept the bottom of the pit. - At least, a man stand-

ing on a bowldet like that the redskin: had mounted could
have reached the end of the limb. |
But unfortunately in. bearing down the limb. Pawnee

‘Bill brought it away from the redskin- instead of toward
- him. And, although the black eyes of the Ute saw. the

help: that the white man was offering him, he could not
avail himself of it.”

It was a tantalizing situation. Aye, it w as: tragic.
~.In a moment the growling grizzly darted around the
rock and stood up again to strike the redskin from his
perch. But. the latter jumped to the other side of the
narrow platform of rock.on which he had sought refuge.

Had the Ute not been deprived of the use of one atm
he might have. essayed the climbing of one of the trees
during the battle between the male bears, But now such
an aaae: would have been thwarted; for the females,
after nosing the dead. bear, lumbered over to the bowlder
and Se part in this interesting wan John had inaugu-
rate

The. red was barely holding his own against the young
and ferocious grizzly. Every time the bear leaped to a
new place the red had to do the sanie.

Jt was not a stone that John could easily climb up on,

-and-he could not sweep his gréat paw, art hes with its

sabérlike claws, across it.

But now, the females coming to his help, they had the
redskin in the center of a triangle where he hopped: for
a minute like:a hen on a hot griddle in a final attempt to
keep out of their clutches. _

Had the three. bears worked in concert t they would have
had the redskin instantly; but they swung their paws with
more vigor than good sense at first. :

Ong of the females, however, left her marks upon the
red’s hide—a series of. scratches across one calf that. made
it look as though the Indian were sporting striped hose.

This devil’s dance could keep up but a moment longer.
All the spectators realized it. Even Grizzly Dan’ kept
his mouth shut while he watched.

Pawnee Bill complained steadily at his fathire. But an
idea came to him, and, yelling in triumph, he swung lower
on the branch, < anid then, kicking his heels against another
limb, gave to the drooping branch a swinging motion.

Again and again he kicked himself farther. out from the
tree bole. The giant swing might be brought to a point
within reach of the imperiled savage.

At least the thing was wofth trying. Pawnee kicked
again and again,,and the limb swung farther and farther
toward the bowlder. The Ute flashed a look upward and
seemed to measure the distance between him and the de-
scending branch.

Pawnee Bill shifted is position slightly toward the
outer end of the branch. His friend/ above suddenly
shouted:

“Have a cate, Gordon! The branch is giving !”
“That’s what I want it to do, netarnis,” panted the

‘bowie man. -

“But it’s splitting at the trunk—it’s splitting off the trunk,
man!” cried Buffalo Bill, with sudden terror, “Drop off
onto that other limb—quick !”

There was yet opportunity for Pawnee Bill to have
done this. But it would have left the Ute at the mercy
of the grizzlies.

Relieved of Pawnee’s weight, the breaking limb would

have sptung up entirely out of the reach of the redskin.

But one more swing across and the red could grip the
ranch see

Pawnee seid: no attention to. the warning, He kicked
his heels against the limb behind him and swung out over

> the sek pit—and over the bowlder en which the Ute
Stoo

Buffalo. Bill was not idle even white he had warned his
friend of the new. danger. The limb was splitting slowly
oe upon . both. sides, and the white wood showed be-
neath

   

NEW BUFFALO BIL WEEKLY, , “45

   

T he. aout leaped to the. place, cnbueetine the. stout

: leather belt he wore while in mid-flicht. In a flash he had

the belt encircling the tree trunk just beneath the limb
that was tearing away from the parent, stem.

He drew the belt taut and buckled it. It was a tight
band around the tree and the limb together—and it kept
the limb for the moment. from splitting farther.

As he accomplished this a. great shout .tose from the
watchers on the cliff.above. With a swish the limb swung
back, drooping lower than before. A disappointed . roar

: echoed the shouts of the. men.

Just as the grizzlies were about to. seize their prey the
Ute had. leaped upward and secured a onée-hand hold upon
the tough branch that Pawnee Bill had swung within his
er asp! ;

Back the ranch swung, and in another moment the
redskin: might have slid of the branch into the pit again;
but the bowie man swarmed down a foot or two farther
and grabbed the Ute by his braids of black hair,

“Got him!” yelled the bowie man. “Give us. a hand,
necarnis |”

_ Before he shouted, Cody was swinging himself down
from limb to limb. In half a minute he was within reach
and ess his friend off the breaking limb...The Ute

came with him, and all three, breathless and. the sweat

pouring down their. limbs, clung to the bole of the tree
as the broken branch slowly fell into the pit and turned
OVer,

The butt of the limb spanked one of the grizzlies. enartly

on the rump as the three startled animals. darted for.cover,

“FHaleluyer!” shrieked Nomad, fairly jumping up and
down on the edge of the pit, | “Buffer an’ Pawnee Bill
ferever |”

“By gorry!” chined in Wid Bill, “That: was the ora
est ever! Whoop! . Yi, yil”

But Grizzly Dan had no praise for the feat just. per-
formed. He glared at the wounded redskin as Buffalo
Bill and his comrade passed him up the tree, ans fingered
the pistol at his belt sug eeestively:

CHAPTER XIIL
A GRATEFUL REDSKIN,

The two scouts handed the redskin across to the edge
of the pit, and Nomad and Wild Bill caught him. If the
Ute had any idea of running away again he could ‘not do
so, for he lopped down upon the ground, quite helpless.

“The blood was still running from the gashes in his leg
where the bear's claws had caught him, his wounded shoul-
der doubtless pained him greatly, and he had too recently
escaped the jaws of death to make any play toward beat-
ing the white men.

Nomad went to work on him at once. The old trapper
neévet traveled without what Wild Bill called his “surgical
case.” But many of these backwoodsmen were natural
healers and skillful beyond understanding.

The scratches on the leg were a mere matter of cleans-

‘ing, spreading on Nomad’s famous. salve, and bandaging

the leg. But the bullet wound was another and more
serious matter.

The red had plugged the hole with a greasy bit of rag.
That in itself had put foulness in the wound. ‘The trapper
had Wild Bill cut a short length of straight twig with a
pith to it, and this pith the Laramie man skillfully ‘pushed
out, making a hollow tube, smooth and clean.

There was no néed to probe for the ball; Nomad could

feel it under the skin on the back of the red’s shoulder.

He drew out his’ jackknife, which he kept whetted to a
razor edge, and with one incision jumped the bullet out
into the palm of his hand.

Filling his miouth with water which Pawnee Bull brought,
the backwoods surgeon blew it into the wound through
the wooden tube, cleansing the flesh of any foreign matter,
including several bits of bone that had followed the bullet
through to the back of the shoulder. A bone had doubt-
less ‘been ‘chipped, although there was no fracture,

Then the salve was spread on, the wound bound nicely,

-and the red’s left arm bound tightly to his side. If he

could keep the muscle and joints quiet there was a good
chance of the shoulder healing in a few weeks.

 

 
    

  

NEW. BUPFRALO.

 

16 BILL WEEBLY.

   

 

All this tithe Grizzly Dan, squatting on the ground,
watched the proceedings with vast disapproval.

“All thet thar foolishness fer a pesky redskin !’’. he
erunted:: “fd let th bars have him.”

“But L-want him myself,”
“And I don’t propose that he shall be molested.”

“Er-waugh!”, grunted Nomad. “Now ye got orders,
Dan: Keep yer han’s off.”

The hermit and Nomad went away \soon after to. find

the baron, and the three Bills started to get their own
mounts below by the creek and took the prisoner with
them.

The Ute was named Fire in Sky, and after his wounds
had been dressed and he found that the white men meant
him no immediate harm, at least, he was willing to talk
freely.

He evidently knew who the white men were, for the
fame of. Pa-e-has-ka had gone abroad among the Utes
since the time when Oak Heart was their war chief and
White Antelope was the princess of the tribe.

“Pa-e-has-ka was once the Utes’ friend,” said Fire in
Sky, when he was questioned by the scout. “He has saved
the life of Fire in Sky this day. And Pa-e-has-ka’s friend,
 Kulux-Kittybux, is brother to Fire in Sky. I may not be
traitor to my own people, as Pa-e- jhas- ka knows; but some
things I may tell.”

“All right, Fire in Shey, Vosaid Buattalo Bill.) “Hirst: fell
me why and how your people came to strike the innocent
whité men and their squaws on s Lone Tree Gap’ Trail
three days ago.’

“The men with the long wagons were in the Utes’ hunt-
ing country,’ said the In dian.

“But they were only passing theoteh. Surely they would
ha ave. done’ no harm. Game is plentiful.”

Bit where one com Dany, come Aiba 8 will follow. It
is a warning.”

“Fire in Sky very well nue”)
warmly, “that it will bring, trouble on his people. The
white soldiers will be sent against the Utes for this.”

“The Utes have heard that the white soldiers are already

on the way to strike the villages beyond the mountains.
Pa-e-has-ka comes first; then the pony soldiers and the
walk-a- heaps.”

“The: Utes need’ have no fear if they have. done. no
wrong,” said Buffalo Bill sternly. “Who leads your people,
Fire in Sky?”

“This was Flying Feather’s band,” Suainee the oa
skin. “We come out to hunt, Pa-e-has-ka knows well
that the Utes are poor in ponies and cattle. They see
those of the white men and covet them.”

“An- -pe-tu-we!” exclaimed Pawnee Bill, who was listen-
ing. ‘That's right, necarnis. Indians are born thieves, and
they can’t see somet hing they haven't got but want, with-
out their fingers itching.”

“So the Utes attacked the wagon camp to get the
ponies?” asked Cody.

“Pa-e-has-ka has said.”

“But why, then, did they carry away the white squaw?”
demanded the scout, with sudden sternness.

Fire in Sky seemed surprised that the white men should
know this.

“It is the work of Flying Feather,” he grumbled... “He
would be a- great chief. He has taken the white squaw
for his own prize.” .
. “Tf he harms her,” said Buffalo Bill, with earnestness, ‘I

will get Flying Feather’s scalp—and I will kill all his rela~
tions, into the bargain. I have sworn it—I, Pa-e-has-ka.”

The wounded Indian was aaa and looked: very

grave. Buffalo Bill continued:

“Why did Flying Feather send a runner to the south
after striking the wagon train?”

“Swift Deer has gone to rouse the ie villages there
and bring warriors to the help of Flying Feather. Flying
Sead will gather ali the braves of the tribe that will
ight

“By that you mean the foolish youne bucks like your-.
self,” said Buffalo Bill with scorn. “And you ail all be

 

killed by. the soldiers from Fort Prevost.”

“There will many braves come from the place of the
warm winds,” said Fire in Sky. -

“There will not one come in time to help,” said Buffalo

 

said Buffalo Bill sternly.

said’ Buffalo Bill

 

Bill quickly, “for Swift Deer has been overtaken and
oe The old man who tames bears has Swift. Deer’s
scalp drying in his wigwam already.”

This statement was surely a facer for the Indian, a
shook his head and ened a charm against Grizz
Dan’s evil eye.

“The Utes will fail in their campaign against the white
men,” continued Buffalo Bill. ‘Flying Feather shall surely
pay for the blood -he has spilled. Fire in Sky has been
punished enough already. If he gives his promise to
Pa-e-has-ka and does not return-to his people until the
war is over, he shall go free.”

The young brave considered this for some moments in
silence, and then bowed his head in agreement.

“Fire in Sky is wounded. te could not help his people
now. He wil! promise,” he said.

Buffalo. Bill had paroled many a redskin heretofore, and
knew that he could trust this one to do as he was told.
Therefore, when the three horses were recovered he gave
the redskin matches and a supply of their own food and
left him in camp beside the creek with instructions to
remain there for tw enty- four hours before seeking to
cross ae range and join his people.

The three Bills then mounted and forced their horses
into ihe creek, They did not cross it, but rode northward
in the creek bed to meet Nomad, the baron, and Grizzly
Dan at the wagon-trail crossing, about three miles above.

Without being told in so many words, Buffalo. Bill knew
that Flying. Feather and his. crew of cutthroats would
linger somewhere in the cafion to ambush the pursuing
party—if that party was not too large.

Cayuse would doubtless bring up. Major Pringle’s pony
soldiers within twenty-four hours, for they were already
well on the way to the junction of the Lone Tree Gap
and Sandeman Pass trails. .

Satisfied that the party of reds numbered scarcely more
than twoscore braves, the border king knew that the sol-
diers could quickly overpower the reds and then go on
and overawe the villages beyond: the range.

But the scout feared for the safety of the white woman
who had been carried off by Flying Feather’s band. The
wicked chief would doubtiess kill the prisoner if he found

‘that immediate flight was necessary.

Therefore Cody was determined on doing “something
before Major Pringle and the soldiers arrived. It was
to decide upon what tis action should be that the scout
called a council of war as soon as he and his two com-
panions joined forces with their other three friends at the
wagon trail.

CHARTER XLV.
THE NIGHT ADVANCE.

Grizzly Dan was inclined to grumble over the fact that
Fire in sky had been allowed to go free.

“You're a bloodthirsty ole villain, Dan!’ declared
Nomad. “Screechin’ catamounts! Ain't ye got notches
enough on yer gun ter satisfy ye?”

“TH not be content till every red pagan is dead,”
growled the hermit. “He was my meat, thet feller was!”

“I have’ made more by letting him go than I would
have made by scalping him,” said Buffalo Bill grimly.
“Understand that.”

aL dunno as it’s my business,” said Grizzly Dan sullenly.
“You an’ me, Buffler, ain’t got nothin’ in common, l’ll

- gO my way, and yer kin go yours.’

“No,” said the scout patiently.
soldiers will want your help, too.”

“Yah! Wot d’ I keer erbout any fool campaign ye run
agin’ them Injuns? I kills ‘em w’en I finds ‘em. That
suits me better.”

“And that is exactly what you have got to stop, Dan!”
cried the scout.
as the renegades.”

“And is that your business?” ae the hermit.

“It happens to be. Half the Indian troubles are started
by white men. And your promiscuous killing has perhaps
helped start this row with the Utes.”

The hermit was angry. He rose from the fireside and
began cinching the saddle again upon his shaggy pony.

ae ou fellers kin fight yer own way—an’ be derned ter

he decided. “I ain’t one o’ yer scouts, Buffler Biil.”

a want your help. The

“You would kill peaceful Indians as well

   

    
  
   
   
    
 
   
  
 
    
  
 
 
 
 
   
  
  
  
    
  
    
  
   
  
 

 

SS

  
returned the baron, quite calmly.

there.

 

rr ate

day ter eight red skunks,”
waugh

NEW BUFFALO

“But I want you to be one of them for this campaign,”
said the other patiently.
“Cup me-out oft

Dan,

“No, you're not, Dan,” returned Buffalo Bill quietly

“Who's goin’ ter stop me?” roared the half-crazed hee
rit, very much excited.

“You are going to stop yourself, Dan,’
Bill, without moving.

“Vy ah!” ;
“Don’t say it so nasty,”
WwW, hen old necarnis, here,

ise

Dan, with his eyes glowing redly, stopped pulling the
cinch of his saddle and glared at Buffalo Bill.

“T want you. to’ notice, old man,” said the scout, “that
there are some things you can’t do—and be a white man.’

‘Eire waugh !”

“Tm white,” growled Dan... “I smay be. queer, but I’m
as. white as you be—airy one 0’ ye.’

“Then. take off that saddle and: come back here” said
Buffalo Bill briskly. ‘‘No white man can leave a white
woman in the hands of those red devils without making
an attempt to rescue her.”

“By gorry!” muttered. Wild Bill,
face of the hermit.

Nobody else spoke, and it was at least two minutes
before the ferocious expression of- Grizzly Dan’s coun-
tenance changed to a milder one. Then he chucked the
saddle on the ground again, came back to the fire, began
to fill his pipe, and grunted: i

“Well? Spit it out, Bill Cody. t teen wot you say
is true enough. If it’s the white gal yer after, all well
and good, Wot’s yer plan ee

“Undt you vos showin’ mooch sensiblenees adt lasdt,”
grunted the baron, blowing a great cloud of smoke from
his own. lips.

Shut. up, you Dutch emigrant!” exclaimed Grizzly Dan
fiercely. “1 ain’t takin’ no slack from you.

“Vor fy?- Pecause I dond’t gif you no schlack alretty,”
“Idt iss a statemendt I

I’m goin’ back,” declared Grizzly

rejoined Pawnee Bill, laughing.
says a thing is going to. be,

watching the hairy

make—yah.”

Buffalo Bill began,
trouble:

“T want advice, and I want help. You can give me both,
Dan. The reds, from what Fire in Sky told me, will prob-
ably be found in the cafion. /They. will be on the watch for
pursuit, but they will expect that the pursuit will consist
of troopers.

“The Utes will get few recruits before to-morrow morn-
ing. Of course, those Flying Feather expected from the
south will not come at all, for Swift Deer has gone to the
happy hunting grounds.”

“Thar’s one good Injun,’ grunted. Dan.

“As you say. Well, we must find the Ute camp and
strike suddenly and swiftly. We must throw the fear of
the Great Spirit into them before they can know we are
And we must get the woman away from them at
the same moment, or they will surely cut her down.”

“E waugh |” yelped old Nomad.

Uwe wit i right, Bill Cody,” admitted Grizzly Dan.

“Now, give us your idéa.
about ’ carrying out this plan? We have got to find the
camp, bé unseen ourselves, and at the moment we. strike

_ make the play to save the prisoner.”

“T see,” said Dan thoughtfully., He pulled for some mo-
ments on his pipe, and finally observed:

“It is a sure an’ sartin thing thet we’ve got ter do it
ter-night. The Injuns has been in the cafion a day and a
ha’f a’ready.”

“Exactly,” said Buffalo Bill.

“Thar’s only. six of us. Say! Thar ain’t but five, fer
one will hafter stay outside with th’ hosses, an’ ter meet
the advance guard of the sogers.”

“Correct,” admitted Buffalo Bill again.

“Then it’s five ter forty,” declared Grizzly Dan.

“Those are the odds, I believe.”

“And I ain’t sayin’ but thet one white man is ekal any
muttered eld Nomad, “Er-

returned Buffalo.’

cried old Nomad. “Ain't thet thar er fac’?

Bill WEERELY Ly
"That ats all according» to sarcumstances, old fellas
returned Dan. “We gotter find some way of throwing a

scare inter them, as-Cody says. I believe I got it.”

“Yes?” questioned the scout. — ;

OS os pizen reds is erfraid of me,” chuckled Grizzly
an

" Nobody denies it, Dan’

“Because they couldn’t kill me when they sculped me
thet time, they reckon Pm bad medicine.”

“An’ ye aire—ter them,” agreed Nomad.

“They kyant kill me, but I kin kill them,”
the hermit. /

red don’t reckon you want to go up against the wheole
biilin’ of "em, do you?” asked Wild Bill.

“Ach, himmelblitzen !” cried the baron.
foolishness yedt !”

“Say!” growled the hermit, who had taken a great dis
like to no baron. “Ef thet thar Dutch emigrant is a-goin’
erlong on this sortie, I don’t go. Understand, Bill Cody?
It’s all off !”

“The baron has other busivess on hand,” returned But-
falo Bill mildly.

“Moticisss., Goer:
swell up.

1 Yow wi il remain with the hiss here and meet Little
Cayuse and the soldiers.”

“Yah! Dot iss all right,” muttered the baron, and set- ©
tled back on his elbow again.

“Well, thet settles it,” said Dan, in better humor, “phen
pizen red run from me like I was the smallpox in visible

form.”

“AM right,” ag Buffalo Bill. “What then?” ;

As clearly as though his brain always worked sanely,
the hermit put his idea into words. The scout and his
comrades approved the plan. as admirable, for, although
Grizzly Dan was taking a great risk, they expected to take
risks equal with his own :

Whatever was done toward getting the white woman
away from the Indians, those performing the .act must
take their lives in their hands, And to sup the cup of

boasted .
(

“Dot vould Deva |
demanded the

baron, beginning to

- peril was nothing new for Buffalo Bill and his friends.

to. puta quick stop toe further

x

What way would you go ~

As quick as supper was over, the fire was put out and
the animals taken farther back into the woods and hob-
bled. Buffalo Bill gave the baron some important instruc-
tions, and then, with Pawnee and the Laramie man and
the two woodsmen, he set forth toward the mouth of
the pass.

It was scarcely dark when they started; but they had a
long climb up the motntainside. After the first hour’s
walk they left the trail, but traveled parallel with it, and
so pressed on cautiously toward the opening in the range.

A small but riotous mountain brook tumbled down the
hillside beside the trail. This rose somewhere in the cafion
and joined the creek beside which they had camped in the

™ valley.

The noise it made deadened their own footfalls; but it
likewise helped to smother sounds of other moving crea-
tures—if there were any abroad.

Buffalo Bill, however, did not-expect that Flying Feather
had sent more than the one spy back along the trail. Young
Fire in Sky had been sufficient to guard the trail and warn
the Utes of the approach of any pursuers.

As the young Indian was out of the game, the scout -
expected to enter the pass itself without falling in with any
reds. Aiter that, however, their advance must be circum-
spect indeed.

Wild Bill and Nomad took. their way up the hill on the
north side of the trail, while Buffalo Bill, with Pawnee
and Grizzly Dan, penetrated the thicket on the south side.

‘They had arranged signals and all before starting, and

occasionally communicated with each other so that one
party would not get too far in advance of the other. |

The moon did not rise until nine o’clock, and it would
be an hour later before it would shine on this trail. By
that time the scouts hoped to get within the mouth of the
pass. xf

‘Once theré, the moonlight would never reveal them to
their enemies, for the depth of the cafion preciuded any
light penetrating to the bottom saving for an hour or so
after midnight. %

 
“18 “NEW (BULFALO BY WEEKLY.

... They kept sharp, watch: upon the open. trail, -but-saw not
a rnoving figure in all the long-climb. The moonlight was
just whitening the heights above them when they beheld
the darker shadow of the cafion’s motith ahead. au
-. Thesbooming yoite of, the night, owl, followed.‘by the
squeaking grunt of the porcupine, brought’ the two parties
together not a hundred yards .frora the entrance to..the
pass. There they crouched, whispering for,a few minutes,
while the further. details of their plan of campaign were
discussed,
-Not.a-sound reached them from above; yet somewhere
in that. black.cafion they expected to find forty or more
_ bloodthirsty savages—and these five white men intended
to attack the twoscore reds without other assistance than
the natural superstition of the Indians! aes

CHAPTER XV.
THE ATTACK.

_ Not many moments were wasted in discussion. They
were about to press’ torward on the trail whén the sharp
earsor some other sense—of Grizzly Dan. discovered
something, or somebody, near at hand. °

He lightly touched old Nomad, ‘and the trapper passed
ihe sigh on from’ man to man. Buffalo Bill stepped close
to the hermit’s. side-and peered into the darkness. of the
canon's: mouthy.°. 2. pie a ae
Ita moment they all heard “a gravel-stone rolling down
sy declivity: and Anally coming-to rest inthe wagon
trail. Another followed, and the scouts were confident
that a human being was moving along the face of the hill
on the left hand, slightly above’ the trail.

What human being? The question was no sooner,
formed in their minds than it was answered. Nobody
but a redskin could be in the pass at the present time.

_.. “A sentinel lett to watch here,” mouthed Buffalo Bill
at Grizzly. Dan’s ear.

. “Right. Stay here. One.man get him,”.-grunted the
hermit, and in a moment he melted away from the group.

The others could but wait. To butt in on Dan’s game
would be not alone useless, but it might spoil the entire
plan laid out for the night's work, se.

To pounce on the Indian sentinel and not close his. wind-
pipe instantly would allow the red to utter a shriek which
possibly might be heard by the next guard up the pass—
perhaps in the camp of the teds itself.

No knowing how the savages were strung out along
the cafion. Both Nomad and Buffalo Bill knew the pass
well; .they were aware that there were but two places
enduring its. entire length where comfortable camp might
be made. Everywhere else the sides of the cafian were
steep—in, places veritable walls.

The quartet waited with more or less impatience and
anxiety as minute after minute fled, For some time thete
was no sound from the Indian; ahd as for Grizzly Dan,
he moved like a ghost oyer the ground,

Suddenly somebody seemed to make another misstep
upon the hillside. Several stones rolled down—they con-
tinued to roll—and there beat upon the straining éars of
the waiting scouts muffled sounds of a struggle.

Nomad uttered a grunt and dashed away toward the
sound, but Buffalo Bill restrained his other companions.

 

In two minutes the sounds ceased, and then very quietly
Grizzly Dan and the trapper rejoined the party.. Dan
wiped blood from a slash in his left forearm, but would
not let his brother borderman dress the wound.

“Yah! Nothin’ but er scratch, Nick,” he said. ‘That
was one heap big Injun, just the same.”

“He was a giant, Buffler,” explained Nomad. “No won-
der Dan had some trouble with him. The red got his arm
loose once and made use of it—as ye see.”

“It’s a sure thing that the row didn’t rouse up any more
of the pesky critters,” said the Laramie man.

“Yer tight thar, Wild Bill,”.agreed Dan. “Aire ye ready,
‘Bill Cody 2” i

_. They advanced into the pass. Here they kept to the
wagon trail itself, because the way was smoother to the
feet and because from the bottom of the pass they could
seé up on the sides to better advantage. It was lighter
above than in the bottom of the pass. a
' The pass was narrow at the bottom; in places it was

  

little wider than the distance from hub to hub:of a wagon
wheel. ts

The narrow stream of water meandeted through it and
crossed the road a dozen times before the summit of the
pass was reached. But.the water was never more than

-anklé-deepy: = - ‘

The burble of this stream was the only sound; for the
five white men walked as though shod-with vélvet.-. Their

eyes. and. ears. were alert for the enemy, but the single

sentinel iat the mouth of the pass was all that Flying
Feather had set. . | citer 1
Now, at the very top of the pass—and that was about
the middle. of the cafion in the mountain range—was the
first place where the Indians could find room to make an
encampment. It was a level plateau some hundred yards
wide, and the stream gureled out from tinder a rock, giv-
ing the campers plenty of water for both man and beast.
The whites were two hours in getting irom the mouth
of the pass to within’ -stone’§ throw of the plateau. The

‘last few yards.of the climb was always a hard one for

the cattle, and under the break of this hill the five scotits
halted again and whispered. ae
Buffalo Bill, Nomad, and Grizzly Dan had in their minds
a perfect picture of the place. The dull stamping, of the
ponies told them that they weré grazing: at the. far end

of the plateau—right where the pass. pitched downward

again toward-the western valleys. ge ait
Suddenly, as the five whispered, Pawnee. Bill caught

Cody's hand-and pointed above... ‘They. were so deép in

the shadow under this steep hill that one looking: down at

.the spot would not have descried the white men.

- But:against the faint blur of the.sky, picked out by. the
distant stars, there appeared the dull shadow of a. tall
form. It was a.man; a blanket was wrapped ‘closely about
him. and fell to his knees. There was an eagle feather in his
hair, and he stood motionless, looking down. the pass up
which the five had made their way. ay

-It was a sentinel, and while he remained in this attitude
the. white men dared not move. For quite half an hour
he held his position, and the five below lay on their bellies
along the ground and watched hitn. if

Then he disappeared as suddenly as he had come.

Grizzly Dan put his lips to Buffalo Bill’s ear and whis-

pered: cs

“Tharll be another of “em on t’other side 6’ the camp.
He’s gotie over thar ter have a gabfest. It’s gittin’ spooky
time fer them redskins.”

“This yete 1s the hour w’en whiskizoos travels,”
tered Nomad, on the other side of the scout.

“When churchyards yawn and graves give up their dead
—eh?” chuckled Buffalo Bill) “Then it’s yout lead, Dan.
We'll spread out arovind the camp, When you hear me
call, -appear—like Banquo’s ghost.”

‘I never hearn. tell of no Missourian by thet name,”
grunted Grizzly Dan; “but T’ll sure make them reds think
they seen somebody thet’s come straight from one o’ them
yawnih’ churchyards ye was talkin’ of,” ae Ae

Instantly the five men were all in action. Wild Bill and
Nomad went to the right; Cody and Pawnee climbed up
to the left. me

All four reached the plateau, but kept close to the
cafion’s walls, which were here very steep. They were
intending to circle around the encampment until they could
observe where the prisoner was tied down.

The Indians had no tepées. It was a war camp, and
the fires were merely glowing heaps of coals, while the
braves were stretched out about them on the ground,
wrapped in théir blankets.

It was the good fortune of Buffalo Bill and his friend
to discover the prisoner on their side of the plateau.
She was lying between two of the warriors, and her wrists
were. undoubtedly. lashed to thei wrists. The reds had

mut-

‘been merciful enough to-givée her a blanket: but the scouts
knew her instantly by her long hair.

Cibney haven’t hurt her, necarnis,” murmured Pawnee
Bill in Cody’s ear. “Now, whatever else is done, I’m going
to set that girl free. You-fellows ’tend to the reds as hest
you can. I'll settle the two that guard her, cut her loose,
and sneak back down the pass-as fast as 1 can lay my hoofs
to the ground.” \

\
1

 

 

 
 

 

NEW BURP ALE)

“Acreed, Gordon. Let us wait till the others are in
rosition, however.”

“There are the two sentinels over there by the horses,”
said Pawnee. “We want to begin the dance before those
two start this way.”

“T’'d like to stampede the ponies down the pass again;
but that would endanger the woman’s life and result, per-
haps, in a bad mix-up for us.”

“Tet well enough alone, necarnis,” advised Pawnee Bill.
“Tm ready when you are. Give old Grizzly, yonder, the

ot.

Buffalo Bill, deciding that the time was ripe, signaled
to the hermit as agreed. Immediately a light glowed at
the far end of the plateau, and advanced toward the en-
campment of Ute braves.

It was a peculiar, misty, uncertain light, and floated in
the air at about the height of a man’s head from the
ground. Almost at once the two Indians talking near
the ponies observed this strange light.

They both uttered startled grunts—at least, one of them
erunted in true Indian fashion; the other sprang toward
the ponies as though to flee. '

His companion did not notice this move at all; his entire
attention was taken up with the approaching white light.
In his own tongue the sentinel cried: ~~

“Awake, brethren!. What is this?”

Instantly a long, shrill, eerie cry shattered the silence
of the plateau. The call was perhaps associated in the
minds of every redskin there with the strange bemg whom
the whites called Grizzly Dan, but whom the reds referred
to as “the man who tames bears.”

They had heard his battle cry. They had seen him racing
through the forest with one, sometimes two, grizzlies fol-
lowing him. That he was superhuman was never doubted
by any of the redskins.

And now, as the call was repeated, the hermit dashed
forward, revealing his bearded features lit up by a pale,
phosphorescent fire that added to the awfulness of his
appearance and struck terror to the hearts of the awaken-
ing braves.

The reds sprang to their feet, entangled in their blankets.
The pistols of the white men began to pop with deadly
certainty.

Back across the plateau came flying the single sentinel
who seemed to be of any use to the reds; and Buffalo Bill
saw then by his headdress that he was a chief.

“Flying Feather!” shouted the great scout, leaping into
the path of the running red. “For your villainies you shall
die! Pa-e-has-ka swears it!”

Answering this challenge, /the chief of the Ute band
uttered his battle cry and dashed upon Buffalo Bill.

Meanwhile, Pawnee Bill had darted into the camp, and,
ere the first yell had parted the lips of Grizzly Dan, the
bowie man’s great knife had flashed twice and the two
Indians lashed to the captive both sank back upon the
eround, their death cries stifled in their throats.

Two more slashes, and the girl was free of their filthy
bodies. Pawnee Bill hoisted the prisoner instantly to his
shoulder and started back across the plateau on the dead
run,

And as he ran he yelled to his friends:

“Come on, boys! The war’s over! I’ve got her

The drumming of the ponies’ hoofs showed that they

had been stampeded down the pass to the westward,
accompanied, not unlikely, by the second sentinel. The
other reds fought only in a half-hearted fashion, for they
were terror-smitten by the attack at this hour of the night
and by the appearance of Grizzly Dan.
_ Between Buffalo Bill and Flying Feather, however, the
fight was fast and furious. The chief had run upon the
scout, discarding his blanket and clubbing the old-fashioned
}carbine that he carried. ;

In dodging a blow, Buffalo Bill slipped on the turf, and,
coming to one knee, fired upward at a slant at the redskin..
The ball seared the red’s shoulder, and the fiash of the
fgun almost blinded him.

Perhaps Flying Feather thought at the moment that his
time had come. At once he started the death chant and
fell upon Buffalo Bill with a reckless abandon not at all
usual in Indian fighting. :

{??

He seemed to reck nothing of the guns the white man _

‘behind it, Buffalo Bill rolled half over.

TT

bud, Bad Bas Bae.

WEEELY.

eo

carried, but, drawing his knife, Flying Feather flung him-
self forward, gripped the scout’s shoulder and plunged
downward with all his weight behind the knife! :

Cody swung backward to escape the blade and to get
his gun into action again. A second time he went square
on his back on the ground and Flying Feather fell upon
him. The red changed his tune instantly. Instead of the
death chant, a triumphant yell passed his lips.

But Pa-e-has-ka had been in many a tight corner, before.
He was one who fought until all hope was gone—and
then still fought! :

As the blade descended with the weight of the Indian
The knife caught
in his sleeve and pinned the arm to the ground, hampering
the scout a good deal.

But his good right arm was free. He dropped the gun
as being useless at the moment,’and caught the Indian
around the neck.

He hugged Flying Feather so tightly to him for the
next few moments that the red could only gurgle and
struggle. Losing his knife, the red was as helpless as
Buffalo Bill himself—as far as weapons went. But he
scratched and kicked like a wild cat.

The red’s glaring eyes were close to Buffalo Bill’s own.
His hot breath almost stifled the scout.

The latter rolled over slowly, crushing the knife which
the Indian had lost into the ground. Then of a sudden
he felt the fingers of the red upon the butt of his other
gun, still in its holster at Buffalo Bill’s belt. If Flying
Feather drew the gun Cody knew that it would be all
over in a moment.

CHAPTER XVI.
IN AT THE FINISH |

If the baron felt hurt because he was not allowed to
accompany the other scouts up the mountain, he did not
show his pards that such was the case. He received his
orders phlegmatically, as was usual; but he carried them
out faithfully,

The camp fire was put out; his precious pipe could no
longer be smoked. He squatted beside the wagon trail,
his blanket wrapped about him to keep out the night mists,
and remained as silent and as quiet as.a graven image for
several hours. iy

This was no time for the baron to indulge in’ repose, /
therefore he kept his eyelids open and indulged in no cat
naps.

Yet the very brooding silence of the night bred a som-
nolénce ‘that was hard for the baron to shake off. His
hearing seemed to become divled and his eyes glazed. over
with the sleep that he fought off. :

He could not see far in the darkness, anyway; but he
at last was aroused to watchfulness by a tremor that
seemed to run through the earth beneath him.

The tremor continued: it seemed to approach. The
German was certainly awakened to violent agitation by it.

“Himmelblitzen! Vot iss??? he muttered. “Iss dot some
eart’qvake yedt? Shall ve de mountains haf tumblin’
down ubon us alretty? Nicht wahr!” ;

The tremor continued; now it seemed to be a rapid,
rhythmic beating! And then the baron leaped to his feet
with a stifled cry.

“Vota foolishness mit me!” he grunted. “Dot is de
t'umpin’. of a pony’s feet! Von rides fasdt—undt from
de easdt. Iss he a red man, or iss he white?”

The pounding drew nearer and nearer. A rider was
coming wildly across the valley, and following the wagon
trail openly. :

The baron got ready his guns, but he likewise cautioned

himself to have a care with them.

“TFT shouldt py mistake shoodt dot Leedle Cayuse, den
Puffalo Pill vould nefer forgif me—nit!” he muttered.
“Undt idt dooes ride like dot Inchun boy—su-ah!”

It was certain that a very reckless rider was coming.
Moment after moment passed, and finally the baron de-
scried a faint shadow bearing down toward him. He
chanced it.

“Whoob! If dot iss Leedie Cayuse, Puffalo Pill’s pard,
ctoh idt! If idt iss anudder Inchun, stand undt delifer
yedtl’ :

oe

 
20 NEW BUFFALO

This strange challenge, roared into the night was evi-
dently heard by the hurrying rider, and he pulled in at
once.

“Stop!” roared the baron again.
yourselluf vonee!” ‘

“No shoot! Me Little Cayuse!” was the answer to his
challenge in a low voice.

The baron could not mistake the Piute’s voice.
claimed :

“Himmelblitzen! Idt is salve for a sore eye, your woice
iss, Cayuse! Gome down undt dell me—haf you yound
de solchers, an’ iss dey caming?”

“Heap pony soger—come quick,” said Little Cayuse.
“Where Pa-e-has-ka ?” :

“He has gone mit Bawnee Pill undt Vild Pill undt olt
Nomat undt dot feller vot owns de Hans bear de- hill
oop, for de Inchuns to’ findt alretty. Dey vill haf de
voomans safe pefore de attack iss made on de camp.”

“Wuh!’ grunted Little Cayuse.

“T vas to stay here undt meet oop mit you,” explained
the baron.

“You see me—wuh!” grunted the Piute. “Now we fol-
low Pa-e-has-ka?”

“Vell, idt might pe de gourse of visdom,” agreed the
‘baron. ‘Dere iss pud fife of dem, undt adt least forty of
de Utes. Two more might make some noise—yes?”

“Wuh!” agreed the Piute, as eager as the baron to get
into the ight. “Major Pring’—um say he lead pony sogers
into pass, he no hear from Pa-e-has-ka before git there.”

“Give a aggount of

He ex-

“Den idt is a su-ah t’ing he vill come right afder us,”.

said the baron.
Pattato Ril?
Little Cayuse had already dismounted, and now he

“Ve vill go undt dake de newses to

hobbled his pony with the mounts of the other scouts.

' Together the Piute and the baron trudged up the wagon
trail toward Sandeman Pass,

They did not consider it necessary to take the precau-
tions that their friends had. Buffalo Bill and his ¢ompan-
ions had undoubtedly cleared the way, not only for them,
but for the troopers coming swiftly from Fort Prevost.

And when the Indian and the German reached the pass
itself they did not hesitate, but plunged into its. gloom.
A few yards they went only, however, before the keen-
eyed Piute uttered a grunt of warning.

Sou ’ burbled the baron. “Iss dere dancher alretty

edt?’
“Wuh! Um look-y here!” commanded the Piute.

The baron found him down on his knees beside the nar-
tow stream of water.
body.

The baron scratched a lucifer, and in its brief glare they
saw that it was the body of a gigantic Ute lying face
downward in the stream—and he had been scalped,

“White man take um scalp,” grunted Little Cayuse.

“Tdt vos olt Nomadt, or dot gr-razy Kritzly Dan,”
declared the baron, “Adt leasdt, ve know dot dey iss
aheadt of us alretty.” |

They pressed on for half a mile or more before the
racket broke out upon the summit of the pass. The instant
hullabaloo assured the baron and the Piute that Buffalo
Bill and his companions had either attacked the reds or
the reds had ambushed the scouts,

The yells of Indians and whites echoed down the pass
like a chorus from Hades itself.

The baron and Little Cayuse hurried up the slope, and
as they approached the scene of the battle they shouted
encouragement to their friends.

Whether any of the scouts’above heard these cries it
is doubtful; but farther below on the mountainside there
was a clearer and more penetrating sound,

It was the bugle call of the United States: cavalry—a
bugle sounding “double quick.”. Behind them, and coming
up the pass at as rapid a pace as possible, were two files
of troopers; and the noise of the battle at the summit of
the pass was understood by Major Pringle quite as well
as it was by the baron and the Piute.

Meantime the fight on the plateau had gone both for
and against Buffalo Bill and his pards,

‘Pawnee Bill had been the most successful of any, for
he had killed his two men and gotten away with the girl.

Lying partly in the stream was a

BILL WEEKLY.

He was running down the steep pass, while Cody was
having his terrific struggle with Flying Feather, the chief.

On the other hand, Grizzly Dan had waded in for blood
and scalps. Every redskin he killed he stopped to scalp—
a most atrocious and unnecessary proceeding, yet one that
did much toward striking terror to the redskins’ souls.

To go to the happy hunting grounds without one’s scalp
was to betray the fact that one had been worsted in battle.
Besides, the old-fashioned borderman began to take scalps
when there was a bounty fixed upon them just as there
was on wolf scalps!

So Dan might have done more for the general good had
he not fought in this single-handed way.

On the other side Wild Bill and Nomad had begun to

retreat so as to cover Pawnee’s escape with the girl. And,
seeing the whites give way, the reds rallied and came at
hem.
; In the darkness nobody could shoot with certainty, and
one could scarcely tell friend from foe; but there were
so many more of the Utes than of the attacking party that
the latter had the advantage in that point alone—they
could be pretty sure that whoever came toward them was
an enemy.

Wild Bill and Nomad came to the break of the hill
leading eastward. They had seen Pawnee run that way
with the prisoner on his shoulder. ;

Grizzly Dan was not far from them, his eerie yell sound-
ing above the shrieks of the Utes. The phosphorus had
now evaporated, and the hermit did not make such a ter-
rible appearance; but he was executing a terrible venge-
ance, nevertheless, on his red enemies.

‘““Whar’s Buffler?” yelled Nomad. “Hi, Buffler! Sing
out fer yerself !”,

“Here! came a rather faint answering cry, and instantly
Wild Bill and the borderman knew that their friend and
chief was in some extraordinary peril.

“Er-waugh !” yelped Nomad, and leaped forward again,
bowling over a couple of Indians as he ran. “Yere we
come, Buffer! This way, Dan, you old sinner! Er.
waugh!. Er-waugh!”

His wolf yelp certainly was a cheering sound to Buffalo
Bill. Caught as he had been by the chief of the Utes, he
might not have escaped with his life had the charge of
his friends not affrighted Flying Feather.

The red leaped up, dropping the gun that he had drawn
from Buffalo Bill’s holster. The scout tried to catch him
again, but the nimble red eluded his hand, and by the time
Buffalo Bill was on his feet Flying Feather had disap-
peared into the gloom.

“Just in time, old faithful!” cried the scout to the bor-
derman. “He would have had me in a moment. But now
we have lost him.”

_ “By gorry! We've got a-plenty,” said Wild Bill.

“Retreat!” cried Buffalo Bill, gathering up his scattered
hardware. “We must cover Pawnee.”

They ran to the edge of the plateau, dragging Grizzly
Dan with them, and reached the break of the hill ahead
of any of the Utes. is

There they gave them a last volley, and it was. then
that the baron and Little Cayuse came upon the scene,
panting, but eager for the fray. '

“De sogers iss caming!” shouted the baron. “Dey iss
alretty behindt us vonce! Ve pass Bawnee Pill undt such
a pootiful laty——” '

Just then a stray Indian bullet clipped the baron’s cap
from his head, and, with a howl of rage at the affront,

he. began to fire at the bunched redskins with both his
pistols. |

_“Um pony sogers come, Pa-e-has-ka,” reported Little
Cayuse. “All same you say.”

“Good boy!” commented Buffalo Bill, and the fight
went on,

But some of the Utes must have understood English—
even the brand the baron chattered. They realized that
soldiers were riding up the pass, and they feared to meet
them in the darkness. Besides, their own mounts had
stampeded.

With shrieks of tage, they ran back across the plateau

and disappeared down the pass to the westward. When
Major Pringle and the first of his troopers arrived there

 

 
 

 

NEW. BUFFALO

were only dead Indians remaining on the plateau at the
summit of the pass.

Fires were lighted, and the party awaited there for the
coming of the main body of cavalry. It was determined
that the soldiers should go on to the Ute villages and read
the riot act to the tribe. And if possible Flying Feather
and the braves that were of his party must be apprehended
and taken back to Fort Prevost.

It was quickly arranged that Buffalo Bill, Wild: Bill,
Nomad, and Little Cayuse should accompany the army;
but Pawnee Bill and the baron were instructed to accom-
pany the white girl rescued from the Indians to the min-
ing town of Lone Tree Gap, where the young lady declared
she had friends.

Her case was a most pitiful one, for she had been trav-
eling West with her family, and every near felative she
owned had been killed by the Indians. She was an orphan,
and, save for those whom she knew at Lone Tree Gap,
was quite friendless,

The Utes, who had captured and run off with her, had
shown her considerable kindness, and she was a plucky
girl, anyway. She could ride, and she went quite cheer-
fully away with Pawnee and the baron, and was deeply
grateful to all the scouts for her rescue.

As for Grizzly Dan, he disappeared very soon after
the fight in Sandeman Pass was over, He had done all
he had agreed to do, having seen the white girl rescued;
and now Buffalo Bill feared that he had taken. the back
track in an attempt to seek out young Fire in Sky, the
grateful Ute, and get his scalp, as well, to dry over the
tire at his lonely hut on the mountainside.

Grizzly Dan, however, could not be held accountable
for all his deeds. He was not like other men.

THE END.

A bowie-knife story for the next issue: “Buffalo Bill
at Lone Tree Gap; or, Pawnee Bill in the Bear Pit.” To
the Easterner, unaccustomed to the early Western modes
of warfare, a mere knife would seem rather meager arma-
ment for a man contending against enemies provided with
rifles, spears, and hatchets. But this story will show what
a skillful man can do with one of the knives invented by
the famous Colonel Bowie. i
fare and woodcraft and startling adventure. No. 282.
Out February end.

cnet sheen neater ete

BOY’S VENTURE IN FOOD AND FINANCE.

He’s just a bit of a kid—but he’s smart, mind you, he’s
smart,

His mother sent him downtown the other day to do some
buying. She gavé him an additional 15 cents with which
to connect up with a one-arm lunch. :

About ten minutes before high noon the boy edged into
a one-armer, ordered a flock of food, and devoured it.
When he looked-at his check it said 35 cents. And he had
only 15 cents. :

Boy strategy went to work immediately. He edged up
to another part of the counter and ordered 15 cents’ worth
of food, The waiter gave him a 15-cent check. He choked
the provender down and then ambled over to the cashier
and passed her 15 cents and his: check.

That evening he told his mother about it and she up-
braided him for his dishonesty.

“Don’t roast me, mother,’ he said soberly. “Eating that
_ extra 1§ cents’ worth was punishment enough.”

 

ONE WAY TO FIND THE NUMBER OF DAYS IN
: THE MONTH.

Count the knuckles of the hands, with the spaces be-
tween them; all the months with thirty-one days will
fall on the knuckles, and those with less than thirty-one

in the spaces. Thus, beginning with the forefinger of the |

left hand, July will come on the knuckle of the little fin-
ger; then, beginning with August on the forefinger of the
right hand, December will be reached at the knuckle of the
third finger. /

It is a ripping story of war- -

BILL WEEKLY. a a

THE LAST OF THE. HERD:
Or, A Big Contract Well Filled.
By EDWARD C. TAYLOR.

(This interesting story began in New BUFFALO BILL WEEKLY
No. 279. If you have not read the preceding chapters, get the
back numbers which you have missed from your news dealer.
If he cannot supply you with it the publishers will do so.)

 

CHAPTER VIlIl—(Continued).

Suddenly the dancing stopped, and the soft waltz music
of mandolins and guitars came to an end. He heard soft
conversation in the house, and then Bud Morgan’s voice
come floating out into the night. Bud had been requested
to sing, and -he was singing the old cowboy song about his
horse that he had sung that morning. There was some-
thing manly and stirring in Bud’s voice, something honest —
and good in his rough dialect. It went straight to Ted’s
heart as he sat there and listened. Then came the chorus,
in which all the young range riders joined. Ted could
ditsinguish. all their voices and could hear the sweeter
tones of the girls, who had joined in also, in the stirring,
merry music; Ted had forgotten all about the dark-eyed
girl at his side now. He was thinking of his free life on
the prairie, of his dear friends and comrades, of the two
girls who had been as stanch as steel to him through all _
vicissitudes.

“Ride away so ready, oh!

Spur away so steady, oh!
Spirited and heady, oh!

We leave dull care behind.
Leaping and a-dancing, oh!
Through the sun a-prancing, oh!
Out upon the prairie, oh!
Racing with the wind!”

The song seemed to bring with it the odor of the open
air, of far distances on the scented prairie, of honesty and
truth and loyalty. At its sound, whatever influence or fas-
cination Rosalie had been able to exercise over the young

-roughrider had faded away and become like a dream.

Ted was standing up and looking down at her.

“T think I’ll go back to the house,” he said, in a changed
voice; “but first I would like to talk to you.” :

Rosalie noticed the change in his voice with an odd
sinking of the heart, but she listened silently while Ted
spoke, at first with surprise, then with interest and sym-
pathy. Ted told her all about his first coming to the
West, all about Daisy and Louise, how much he cared for
them both, how honest and good they were, and what true
friends they had been to him. Then he arose and walked
silently away toward the house, leaving Rosalie still sitting
on the chair looking after him,

Rosalie did not go back to the party that night. Instead
she went to her room and wrote a letter to Earl Rossiter,
calling a servant to take it to his room, where he had
retired. In it she said that she could join no longer in his
schemes against Ted Strong.

“He has taught me to respect and admire him,” she con- .
cluded, “and to respect truth and honesty as well. I will
leave here for the East to-morrow. I intend to go to my
mother and make a clean breast of all my debts and let
her send me to a convent if she wishes. I have been
thoughtless and wicked, but I have remembered in time,
I shall be another girl from this on, and there is no_use
persuading me, or trying to talk to me. Good-by, Earl,
for I don’t suppose I shall see you again. +

“Rosatie WINTERS.”

CHAPTER VIII.
THE DAGGER.
Earl Rossiter sat alone in his room on the upper floor
of the Sunset Ranch house. before him was a table with |

a student lamp and a half-emptied brandy bottle and
glass. Spread out in the light of the lamp, slightly crum-

 
 

and then hurried toward the wall again.

22

pled, was the letter which Rosalie Winters had sent to

him. It had come like a blow to Rossiter. M
Rosalie Winters, and knew that there was no changing
her when she once made up her mind, and all his hopes
of ultimately defeating Ted Strong and retrieving his own
fortunes were shattered,

Ted Strong was still in the house. Tom,Black, who
was thinking of going into the ranch business himself,
had invited him to stay overnight, and go with him to see
a near-by herd of cattle the following morning; and»Ted
had finally consented to stay, although the others had taken
their departure and had ridden away to the Black Moun-
tain Ranch. The dance was over now, and the rest of
the house was in darkness. Earl’s lamp alone was shining
out into the night, and Earl was sitting there, drinking and
brooding.

Ted Strong had gone to bed in the room adjoining Earl's,
but Earl had stirred only to refill his glass from the brandy
bottle. Of late strong drink had taken a terrible hold on
Earl Rossiter. Realizing this, he had stopped for a time
and had begun to feel better, but the events of that after-
noon had sent hin back to his brandy bottle for consola-
tion. Owing to the excited state of his nerves, the liquor
had not aftected him as it usually did. To the outward
eye, except for his blazing eyes, he looked sober and master

of himself, but he was in reality insane for the time.

He suddenly rose to his feet and pulled the paper shade
down over his lamp so that the rest of the room was
shrouded in darkness, and a clear white circle of light was
left on the table. As he moved away, one of his cuff links

*. caught in the shade, and in dragging it away Earl tore

the paper slightly, making two slits, one perpendicular and
rather long, the other short and crossing the long one at
tight angles. _

Earl was preparing to throw himself on the bed when
he heard a noise outside and stepped to the window, The
moon was still high, and it was possible to see objects
with surprising distinctness. Looking-down, Earl could see
Ted Strong’s figure strolling away across the grass. Ted
had been unable to sleep that night, and had finally gone
downstairs again to take a turn in the cool air to see if it
might not make him sleepy. Besides this, he wanted to
take a look at Black Bess to see if she had been properly

~._, stabled, and he strolled over in the direction of the ranch

stables which lay at a little distance from the house.

Earl Rossiter looked at him as he moved off. He ground
his teeth together and muttered wildly.

“There goes the source of all my troubles,” he snarled.
“There is the man who brought me to my present con-
dition, without a friend in the world. If he were only
out of the way, I might hope to get on and have friends.
Oh, if he were only out of the way! If I could only put
hirn cut of the way! If I could only get revenge on him!”

He turned and started back with a stifled cry. It seemed
to his bewildered faculties that the Evil One had heard
his wish and was answering him. There, on the dark sur-
face of the wall opposite, was a dagger—a dagger otftlined
in fire hanging there, it seemed, as if ready for his hand.
If Rossiter had been in his sober senses and not on the
verge of insanity, brought on by a furious temper and
strong drink, hefwould have realized that the slight tear
he had made in the lamp shade had caused the light to
fall upon the wall in that peculiar form.

fe took a step toward the lamp, pushed up the shade,
i But now the
dagger was gone. Pushing up the lamp shade had thrown
the full light of the lamp upon the wall, and of couse the
torn shade had no chance now to cast any shadows upon
it. Earl gasped in astonishment. Generally he was gifted
with good sense and skepticism and would have scoffed
at anything like a belief in signs and tokens. Now he was
a nervous wreck, ready to believe anything, frightened at
the slightest sound.

“No dagger there!” he muttered. “No dagger there!”

He stepped over toward the wall, and then the gleam
of something lying cn a table caught his eye. It was a
Mexican poniard he had purchased as a curio in old Mex-
ico and used as a paper knife. It was cross-hilted, just
the shape of the golden dagger that had shone on the wall
but a-moment before. Without knowing what he did,

Earl reached for it and clasped it in his hand. His fingers

 

NEW BUFFALO

He knew.

  

BILL, WEEKLY,

closed about the hilt and gripped it tight, although he did
not make any conscious effort to grasp it. se

It seemed to Earl that some voice was speaking inside
his head, or that some spirit that he could not see was
whispering in his ear. Here were the words he heard:

“Ted Strong is outside, alone, looking at his. horse.
One of your Mexican vaqueros stole a horse and ran
away to-day. You alone know about it. Here is the dag-
ger ready to your hand, the dagger that you saw on the
wall. Kill Ted Strong, turn his horse loose. He will be
found next morning. His death will be laid to the missing
vaquero. It will be thought that he reproved the Mex-
ican for not taking good care of his horse and that the
Mexican turned upon him, stabbed him, and fled. You will
be safe. Kill him. Better still, drop his body down the
old well, the cellar of the disused stable. No one ever
goes there. It is said that the stable is haunted. He will
never be searched for there. If you turn his horse loose
he will run to the Black Mountain Ranch, ten miles away,
across the prairie. It will be thought that Ted fell from
his horse and was robbed by the wayside.” ~

Earl listened to the voice, grasped the dagger tighter,
and slipped down the stairs without knowing what-he was
doing.

On in the moonlight, he paused and hesitated. Then
he slunk in the shadows and followed Ted Strong. Ted
had looked at his black mare and seen that it was com-
fortable. Then he strolled along toward a low, dark stone
building.

“This is an interesting place,’ he muttered. “This is
the old stable. Before it was a stable it used to be a house.
They say it is haunted. I think I’ll have a look at it, for
I don’t feel like sleeping yet.”

The entrance to this place was an arch built of solid
masonry and of lofty proportions. . The interior looked
as black as night, but Ted passed on, little knowing that
there was a figure slinking along as silently as a panther
in the darkness behind him. The floor underneath his feet
was rotten and dusty, the boards creaking and groaning
under his weight. Suddenly he stopped with a start. A
great hole gaped in the middle of the floor, and he might
have walked right into it in the darkness. He came to
a standstill and looked down. As his eyes became more
used to the absence of light. he could discern a circular
aperture in the floor.

He listened and peered down into it. The air from
it was damp and cold, and from its depths came a soft
splash. His foot had stirred a pebble on the floor and
sent it down into the black hole. It had splashed in the
water beneath.

“So this is the old well,” said Ted, stepping back a pace.
“IT have heard people say that there was a well in here.
It was dug when this place was used as a fort and when
the occupants were sometimes besieged by the Indians and
needed a supply of drinking water within’ the inclosure.
No one ever goes near it now, for they say it is haunted.
I could almost imagine it was haunted myself, for I hear
the boards creaking behind me.”

Ted turned about, and the faint noise that he had heard
ceased instantly. He listened for a moment, but heard no
further sound.- ‘

“Must have been a rat,” he muttered, and turned once
more toward the old well.

Somehow that gaping black hole interested him.

“In the old times,” he thought, “there was no flooring
but earth. Just tramped earth. That water cannot be very
far down. It’s a pretty good place to have a water supply
on a ranch, for water is a thing a ranchman needs more
than anything else.”

_ He stooped down to pick a pebble, intending to cast it
into the well and to estimate the distance below ground
that the water was.

As he stooped, one of the lurking shadows behind him
took form _and shape—leaned forward.’ Ted felt a
hand grappling at his throat, felt himself pushed forward
toward the well. At the same time something struck him
on the shoulder and he felt a sharp, stinging . sensation.
He tumbled forward and hung for a moment on the very
edge. of the well. He held with his hands and knees to
the floor and-struggled with every ounce of strength that
was in him. He knew that some one had stabbed him in

 

 

 

  
 

   

NEW BUFFALO

the shoulder and was -tryitie to cast hini down into’ the
black pit that yawned at his feet. He had not the faintest
idea“ who it was, but he knew. that he was on the verge
of goitg over, and he fought with all his streneth.. The
dark figure fought without a cry or sound, and fought with
the wild futy of a madman. -Ted could not make out who
it was inthe darkness. He*coild see a faint gleam of the
upraised dagger, and reached for it.. He could ‘hear the
hissing breath of his antagonist, but beyond the gleam of
his eyes: could see nothing of him.
Again the dagger descended. This time it scraped alone
his sleeve and slid to one side without: cutting it) The
blow had glanced off from the well-woven khaki of Ted's
coat. “Ted grasped for the hand, atid at the same time tried
to get on his feet. , He struggled in vain, for the man who
was fighting him pushed him back and down. Hé man-
aged to clasp the hand that held the dagger, but in trying
to tise he was pushed farther back over the edge of the
old well. “For a moment he hung there, trying to regain
his balance. ae
Then the rotten woodwork gave way beneath him: He
let go of the hand to grasp the support. The dagger swung
through the air and struck him on the shoulder. The hilt
only struck him, and hé was not cut or hurt, but the blow
was sufficierit to topple him over from the perilous. posi-
tion he held. He felt the weight of his opponent bearing
him down arid back, and his hands slipping over the dtisty
floor in spite of his efforts to grasp it.
He was hafiging in the well now, his breast leVel with
the flooring, his hands supporting his whole ‘weight, his
legs and teet daneling into. blackness: and nothingness.
And still he was slipping, slipping. r

Again the dagger descended, the hilt striking him on
the head, the blade nearly touching his face. Down he

went, He was hanging by his fingers now; they were slip-
ping and his hold was breaking.

Splash! He was in cold. water, deep down inthe dark-
ness, fighting upward for air and life. -

In the meantime Earl Rossiter had risen to his feet.
Trembling from head to foot, he stood for a moment.
Then he flung the daggér from him, He heard it splash-
ing in the water of the old well. He turned about and
made his way back to the house. In his room the brandy
bottle caught his eye. He tossed off a glass of the raw
spirit as though it had been water, and threw himself on
the bed—but not to sleep. gt

For hours he tossed and groaned in a half delirium, and
when rosy dawn broke in the east and the fresh wind and
twittering birds in the eaves of the ranch house told it
was day again, he was a haggard and disheveled figure,
his face pale as death, his eyes with great black rings
under them, his hands trembling as those of one with the
palsyon .

Shortly after he returned to his room, Ted Strong,
dripping and shivering, climbed out of the dark well.
Notie of Earl’s thrusts with the dagger had struck him
fair, and he had only one slight wound in his back. Earl
had been striking in the dark, and he had been striking
wildly like a crazy man.

When he came to the surface, Ted had supported him-
eslf by eatching with his fingers in the trannies of the
rocks of which the well was built. He had. remained there
without a sound until the footsteps that sounded on the
floor above had- died away, and then he had started to
climb out, He did not find this as hard a task as one
might suppose. The masons who built the old well had
left a series of projections in its side by which one might
descend to clean it. Ted found these after some groping
in the darkness, and, climbing up to the level of the floor,
pulled himself out. To an athletic young man like Ted
the task was an easy one. Ca ee

A soft whinny sounded in his ear, and at the door of
the barn he saw his horse, Black Bess.

“Hello!” he muttered. “I think some one has turned
my horse loosé, or perhaps I left it untied. I'll ride back
to. Black Mountain to-night. Beanpole can dress that
wound in my shoulder better than I can get it dressed
heté, Afid to-morrow aftérnoon I'll see Rossiter and tell
him about what happened to. me. These Mexicans! whom
he employs here ate a pretty tough crowd. There’s no

  

BILL, WEERLY.

ADI
23.

“tise waking tp the hotse ‘now, however, and whoever
tackled me has got under cover by -this time.” a

Flinging himself on the back of the pony that Earl
Rossiter had turned loose, Ted’ galloped off. Ae ee ee

CHAPTER IX.
| AN UNINVITED GUEST. :

On the afternoon of the following day Earl Rossiter
had arranged to have several men meet him at the ranch
house. They were men interésted in mining work about
Crook City, and Earl hoped to sell them shares in the
mine he had. opened alongside of Ted’s on the Yellow
River, and thus raise money enough to keep him for a
while. He could have secured money from his father,
but of late he had broken away altogether from ‘the con-
ttol of the old gentleman, and he did not want to see him
again, Tom Black was at the Sunset Ranch house that
afternoon, wondéringe what had become of Ted Strong.

“His pony is gone,” said’ Earl. “He has just taken a
notion and ridden off to Black Mountain in the middle
of the night. Perhaps he had some business there that he
forgot about and he remembered about it later on.” ...

“Why didn’t he tell me about it?” said Black angrily.
re can’t stand for a fellow who breaks appointments that
way.

Earl shrugged his shoulders and said nothing. Outside
of his pallor and the dark lines under his eyes, he looked
much as usual. A cold bath in the morning had braced
him up a great deal, and he had managed.to regain ‘his
nerve by a great effort of his will. : De Satna

“Good heavens!” said Black, after a moment.
a fearful cigarette fiend,”

Earl had been smoking. oie cigarette after another.
They seemed to steady his nerves. p i
“They don’t do mé any harm,” he said, glancing at the
litter of butts which Black had noticed on the table. “1
like to. smoke a few beforé I do any talking. They seem
to clear my brain. J am going to meet-some mining men
from Crook City, and. I ;want to talk to. them about.a
mine I have out bere. I want you to stay, for I think
you will be interested in it. Ah, here they come!”

Two or three men were ushered into the room at that.
moment, They were bronzed men, who had been in the
mining business all their lives, and for whom it had a
tremendous fascination, Parl handed them seats and they
sat down. :

“T am waiting for one other man,” said Earl. “Taggart
is his name.. He comes from out of town a little way, but
he knows this mining country pretty well and he has been
doing some prospecting about here for me. Then there is
Gabe Harley, the old pocket hunter. You all know him.”

‘Tageart came in a moment later, and was seated. One
vacant. chair was left inthe room. That was for Gabe
Harley, and they sat still, without saying much, waiting for
him {6 put in an appearance. Presently the sound of hoofs
cainé from outside, and Harley, brown with the weather
and’ bowed with age, came into the room. As he entered,
another figure rode up on the other side of the house,
and, dismounting, entered by a side door.

“Go in and sit down, Mr. Harley,” said Rossiter. “I
am going to get some maps.” .

Harley went in, but could find ho vacant seat.

“They ain’t no place here,” he said.

“Sit down in that morris chair,” said Earl from the
hallway.

“They's a feller in thet,” said Harley. ok

“Nonsense! 1s empty,” said Earl, stepping back into
the foom. Then he gasped and choked and staggered.
There was a figure in the chair, the figure of an uninvited
guest-—Ted Strong—-who had just entered the ranch house
by the side door. oo

Earl looked at him with eyes that frightened those ‘who:
saw them, stageered away toward the wall, and fell in a
heap, uticonscious. Ted rose to his feet and stepped toward
him. As he approached, Earl seemed to come to again,
and broke into terrible screams. ue
“See hin! I left him in the

“You are

“Fook at him!” he cried.
old. well—in the old well!” Staten cer
© His voice broke off into a-wild yell, his eyes rolled up-
ward in their sockets, and he fell uncomscious once more.
24

_ “Fool kid!” said Taggart, as he raised him in his arms.
“Yoo many cigarettes an’ too much whisky has given him
‘fainting spells.” .

Ted Strong looked on the unconscious form of his enemy
with a grave face. He had understood the meaning of his
wild yells better than any one there. He now could guess
who it was that had attacked him in the darkness.

He said nothing, but he knew that fate had foiled Ros-
siter in the wickedest of all his schemes.

CHAPTER X.
AT EAGLE ROCK.

- Earl Rossiter had been removed to his room and a doctor
called to attend him. The physician said that he must have
received some nervous shock which had come near ren-
dering him insane, and that it would be a long time before
the recovered his health.

When Earl had. been restored to consciousness he raved
like a madman and was stricken with a high fever.

Although Ted Strong could have enlightened the phy-
sician as to the cause of the nervous shock that threatened
to dethrone Earl’s reason, he decided to say nothing about
his experience in the old stable.

. The doctor ordered that Earl should have perfect quiet,
and he himself remained at the ranch in charge of his
‘patient. — ;

In the meantime the young people of the Black party
had planned an excursion to Eagle Rock, one of the higher
peaks of the Big Smoky Mountains. The day set for the
trip was crisp and clear, and when the party reached an
elevation above the pine-covered slopes it was almost cold.
_ Tom Black had invited Ted: Strong and his friends to
join the party in their expedition, but the boys at the Black
Mountain Ranch were far too busy for any picnicking at
that particular season of the year. It was time for them
to $ell their hérds, and they were all. busy making'a round-
up and starting the cattle on the trail into Montana, where
they were to be sold for beef at the Blackfoot Indian
reservation.

“That’s Eagle Rock above us,” said Tom Black, point-
ing up at the summit which the party had still to climb,
and which looked a great way off to the girls, who were
already somewhat tired after their stiff climb.

_ “Oh, dear!’ said Lucy Black. “Why couldn’t we have
come all this way in the wagon? I am tired of climbing
over all these rocks.’’

“Couldn't bring the wagon up here,” said Black. “We
brought it just as far as we could, but we had to leave it
behind when we struck these rocky foothills. If we had
followed the winding trail up, we should never have been

able to get anyway near Eagle Rock, and that is the peak

that we want to see.”

The three young men were helping the three girls up
over the larger rocks and stones, and the whole party was
making rather slow progress. Reading, being something
of an athlete, was able to climb a little better than the
others. Beside him was Louise Rossiter, who, owing to
her love for outdoor sport and her life in the West, was
a great deal less tired and fagged than the other girls. _

They were rapidly distancing the others, and finally,
to Reading’s “reat joy, they turned a rock which shielded
them from the view of the rest of the party. Reading, in
his’ association latterly with Louise Rossiter, whom he
had met frequently since he came to the West, had be-
come quite smitten with her. Louise was altogether un-
conscious. of this, and in her anxiety to reach the summit
of Eagle Rock and her enjoyment of the climb she didn’t
notice that they were getting so far ahead of the éthers,

As they turned the big rock, they started on a steeper

ascent. Reading watched his companion admiringly as she

clambered up over the rocks.
“By Jove!” he said. “It is not often that one finds a
girl like you. Most of the girls I know would have given
out before we had gone half this distance, but you are as
strongxand athletic as a boy, and, besides that, you have
lost none of your feminine charm.” Ta eana
“T don’t need your arm, Mr. Reading,” said Louise,
drawing away from him; “and as for my being athletic,
any girl would. be athletic if she spent most of her time

outdoors.”

 

NEW BUFFALO

  

Bibl, WEEKLY, i

“But few girls would be like you,” said Reading, paus-
ing to look into her eyes.
Louise avoided the look. She did not altogether like
Reading’s manner. She was not at all alarmed by it as
Daisy Miller. might have been. Louise was stronger and
more confident than Daisy, and she was perfectly sure
of her own ability to keep Reading in his place. She had
noticed that he had been more attentive than she liked
on several occasions, and now that they were alone she
saw that he was walking very close to her and trying to
assist her over the rough places by catching hold of her
arm,
“Tt wish Ted Strong were here,’ she said suddenly.

Reading scowled for a moment, and then, when. she

turned toward him, resumed a smiling face.
-“T wish he were here, too,” he said. “I admire him a
great déal from what I have seen of him. But there is
not much chance of meeting him here, is there? He is
away off in Montana by. this time.”

“T don’t know about that,” said Louise. “He went to
Montana by the cattle trail which skirts the foot of these
mountains; but the shortest cut back, unless.he takes the
train, is across the mountains here, and he might come
this way for the sake of any game he might pick up about
here. I shouldn’t wonder if we met him. I was just
hoping we might meet some of the young range riders
when we decided to go out on this excursion.” .

Had Louise seen Reading’s face at this moment she
would have smiled. Reading wore a very unpleasant look,
and it was with the very idea of irritating him that she
had spoken of the possibility of meeting Ted Strong and
the young roughriders up there in the mountains. She
wanted to discourage Reading’s attentions as much as
possible, and she thought that this was as good a way as
any. But Reading was not. to be discouraged so, easily.
He hastened after Louise and reached forth to help her
over a pile of shattered rock.

The girl bounded ahead of him, and in trying to reach
for her Reading slipped and fell. Louise heard him fall,
but did not look back.

“T hope he hasn’t hurt himself,” she thought; “but I
am not going to turn back after him. It gives me a good

_ chance to get away from him and up to the top of Eagle

Rock ahead of the others.”

She ran ahead at a good pace, climbing up the steep
slope around which the footpath wound, at a pace at
which. Reading himself wound have found some difficulty
in traveling. She heard her companion scrambling to his
feet and coming after her as fast as he could. ae
. “Wait a minute, Miss Rossiter,” panted Reading.’ Let
me catch up with you to help you over those stones.”

i Louise laughed softly to herself and ran on all the
aster,

“Let him catch me if he can,” she said to herself. “I
don’t want to be alone with him here, and I want to get
to the top of that rock and have a good look around at
the country beforé the others come up with us... They
must be a long way behind now.” ae

Louise ran on, out of breath by this time, but. never
stopping for a moment. She heard Reading panting and
scrambling along behind her, and she felt as if it were a
race between the two. She saw Eagle Rock towering close
over her head now and already she was halfway up to the
summit. She did not expect to reach the summit. itself,
but a narrow ledge that lay about twenty feet above the
highest point, and to which the narrow path which she
was following led. It would be impossible for her to. get
to the very top, for on that side the face of the cliff for
the last twenty feet was absolutely perpendicular, although
on the other side it was possible to scale it.

At length Louise found herself at her goal and threw
herself down on the moss-covered ledge, breathing deeply,
her face aglow with pleasure and excitement.

“This is beautiful!” she exclaimed. “It’s fully worth
the climb.”

She gazed with sparkling eyes at the scene that was
spread below her. Except for the jagged peak twenty
feet above her head, she was on the highest piece ol
ground for miles around . The air about: her was cold,
bracing, and delightfully pure. Below her, far away, she
could see the level Prairie with a stretch of timber run-

 

 

 

 

 

 

  
 

  

 

ning across it marking the line of a watercourse. A little
nearer were the dark tops of the pine trees which clothed
the lower slopes; and still farther up, almost beneath her,
it seemed, was the winding path by which she herself had
ascended and up which she could see the others still strug-
‘sling slowly and painfully. Reading was not in sight, as
he was hidden from her by the last turn in the path which
he had just rounded. The beauty of the scene, the ex-
hilaration of the exercise, and the air which ran through
the blood like wine, made Louise forget for the moment
the fact that she had been running away from some one.
She threw herself luxuriously down on the mossy ledge
and gave herself up to the keen enjoyment of her position
without a care or thought for anything else. - ‘

In the meantime, Reading was perspiring and fuming
as he made-his way up the path. His tumble, and the fact
that Louise had laughed as she ran away from him, had
put him in a towering rage. He could not help admir-
ing the fleetness and agility of the girl, and he did his best
to catch her before she got to the top.

His best was not good enough, however, and he had to
make the whole of the climb alone, consoling himself with
the reflection that it would be some time yet before the
others eaught up, and that in the meantime he would have
Louise all to himself.

“She pretends to be such a blunt, straightforward girl,
without any coquettishness about her,” he panted, as he
ran along. “What did she run up ahead to the top of
that rock for? Just to be alone with me for a while and
to tease me: I'll show her. She can’t have fun with me
just as she pleases. She is just as bad as the rest of them,
and just as much of a flirt, too, only she hides it more.
It’s these girls who pretend to have no use for flirting
who are: the worst. She thinks there is no one like this
Ted Strong. Well, he is safely out of the way now. The
others are out of sight behind that turn, and it will be a
good half hour before they get here. In the meantime I
have my blue-eyed lady all to myself. Ah!”

Reading’s ‘last exclamation was called from him by
the sight of Louise stretched on the moss and wrapped
up in her golf cloak, looking~down at the scene below.
As he éame out on the ledge beside her, he thought he
had -never--seen such a beautiful girl in his life. Her
heightened color, and the sparkle of enjoyment that shone
in her eyes, the white gleam of her teeth as they showed
between her slightly parted lips, and the strands of golden
hair that the wind was blowing across her face, made her
a striking and beautiful picture.

She turned her head a little as Reading stepped upon
the ledge.

“TIsn’t this view grand?” she said.

“Lovely!” said Reading.

He was not looking at the scenery at all, but at Louise.

Louise neither looked up nor spoke, but remained as she
was, gazing out at the country below and enjoying the
delight of outdoor life to the full. Reading dropped on
the moss beside her, still staring at her.

“I always did like blue-eyed girls,’ he said.

“What has that to do with the scenery?” said Louise,
without turning.

“I’m not looking at the scenery.”

“What did you come up here for, then?”

“To be alone with you.”

As he made this last remark, Reading reached forward
and caught at Louise’s hand, which was lying close beside
him. He only held it for a moment. Louise drew it away
sharply and leaped to her feet. ae

“What do you mean?” she said, staring at Reading.
“I didn’t come up here to be alone with you, let me tell
you that!” fe Res :

“That bluff will do for the others down below, but it
won't go with me.”

“Tt will have to go with you.
to me.”

“You are quite an actress, aren't you? But what's the
use of keeping up this masquerade when no one else can
SCG ais he

“What do you mean?” ;

“I am determined to have one kiss from you before the
others come wp.” :

“How dare you talk to me that way!”

Don’t come any nearer

NEW BUFFALO.

\

25

BILL: WEEKLY.

“I dare it very easily. You have led me a pretty chase.
up this hill, and ’m not going to be bluffed now. I’ve
met lots of girls before, and let me tell you, Louise, that
you aré about the prettiest I have ever seen.”

“Miss Rossiter is the name you are to call me by.”
“Well, Miss Rossiter, then. But by whatever name you
go. by, I am going to have a kiss from you before the
others find us here, Come on, now; be agreeable. I am
going to have it, anyway.” a

He made a step toward Louise, who backed away from
him toward the face of the cliff. She was beginning to be
a little frightened now. As she looked into the face of
the young-man who was confronting her she saw that the
worst part of his nature was uppermost and that he was.
so excited and determined that he had forgotten almost
what he did. val bce

He reached for her, and again she eluded him. . Then
he caught her hand and drew her toward him: Louise
struggled to free herself, but found herself caught in a
grip which she could not break. She was ordinarily a won-
derfully self-reliant girl, but when Reading grasped her
wrist and she found that she could not get herself free
she was frightened.. A moment later he had clasped her
round the waist and was trying to kiss her. Louise:
screamed and struggled. She could not fight away from
him, and.she knew that the others were still a little dis-
tance off. ae

It seemed to Louise that she would prefer casting her-
self over the cliff to having Reading kiss her, and she
screamed at the top of her voice. Reading was so engaged
in, holding the struggling girl that he did not see a’ rope
which was lowered down the face of the cliff behind ‘him,
nor a figure which descended by it. A moment later’ he
was struck a stunning blow on the jaw and felled to the

earth. . fs
CHAPTER XI.
: "THE FIGHT ON THE MOUNTAIN. ee
The figure which had descended. by the face. of the

cliff was that of Ted Strong. As Louise had hoped, he
had crossed through the pass in the Smoky Mountains
and that very morning had gone to climb to the summit
of Eagle Rock. Kit Summers had gone with him, the
other boys remaining in camp with the horses. The two
boys reached the topmost point of the rock just as the
str iaele between Louise and Reading commenced. below
them.

They had heard the screams, and Ted, peering over,
had discerned the form of his girl friend struggling in
the grasp of some man. It was the work of an instant
to sling out his lariat, which he had carried with him,
and bid Kit Summers make it fast to a projection in the
rock while he descended hand over hand. He did not
pause to see who it was that was handling Louise in this
rough fashion, but had struck out at him with all his
strength. Reading rolled over on the ground as though
he had been a tenpin, and Louise, staggering back, looked
with delighted surprise into the face of the young ranch-
man.

“Oh, Ted,” she said, “I was just hoping for you and
praying for you. “I didn’t know what todo.”

Reading was scrambling to his feet by this time, his
face furious. He was a boy with a hot. and overbearing
temper, and at the present moment it had broken all
bounds. He stepped toward Ted, swinging, his hands in.
front of him.

“You young scoundrel!” he snarled.
me and striking at me when I was not looking!
you pay for that. I’ll make you sorry for that. ea

Reading was rather taller than Ted and of wiry and
athletic build. He had gained a considerable reputation
as a boxer in college.

Ted was fully as angry as Reading, but he did not show
his wrath in the same manner as the college man, “His
brown eyes were steady and cool, and a slight smile seemed _
to ‘play about his lips as. he stepped forward to meet.
Reading. a i S

“Please stand a little to one side, Louise,” he said in a
calm, cool voice. Reading flung himself upon him.

Louise had seen Ted in many positions of danger before
now. She had seen him fighting for his life on the plains —
against a gang of outlaws; had seen him almost within

aes ee
ll make.

39

  
26 NEW BUFFALO

the grasp of a wild cat that had spring at him, and had
seen him swaying on the Seat of a buckboard behind a

runaway team; but she had never been so frightened for~

his safety as she was at the present moment, ‘The two
boys were fighting on a narrow ledge of rock from which
on one side dropped a sheer precipice. A misstep might
send either one of them to their death, and there was a
look of absolute animal fury in Reading’s countenance as
he rushed at Ted that terrified her.
“She drew back against the wall of the cliff to be out
of their way, with her hands clasped in front of ‘her, her
eyes staring wide, and her face pale as death. She.saw
Reading rush madly at the young ranchman, swinging
wildly with both hands. She watched with a frightened
gasp as Ted, with a lightning movement, dodged one of
the blows and countered on Reading’s chest. Then Read-
‘ing’s other hand shot out and struck Ted heavily on the
neck.” She saw him stagger beneath the force of the blow,
‘and Reading rushed upon him:
.- Although Ted was staggering, he. was .as cool and
steady as ever. He dropped forward slightly and shot
out his right fist. It caught Reading full between the eyes
and the big fellow went staggering back. Then he turned
and eame at Ted once more. Ted fought him off, landing
two. straight lefts and a right jab, and dodging a furious
- TIeft hook that would have knocked him out had it caught
him on the chin, Reading was not to be stopped, however.
He was fighting like a fiend now, absolutely. forgetful of
his own fury. Se
-. He gave a wild yell of triumph as he saw. Ted backing
away toward the edge of the cliff, and flung himself for-.
ward at him, © :
“Smack! Ted's left shot out viciously, and Reading went
staggering to, the ground with a cut in his lip and two
of his front teeth loosened. He was up like a flash and
at Ted again. ;

He struck wildly and blindly, but one of his blows struck
Ted on the head and sent him to the ground. .He clam-
bered to his feet as quickly as he could, but Reading had
grappled with him before he had quite arisen. For a
moment they tugged and strained, and. then Ted managed
to get his feet firmly placed. Reading’s face showed ‘that
he had forgotten everything but. his own mad--passion.
He was doing his hest to force Ted over. the edge of
‘the ‘cliff, iy Hn eM

Louise could see the two forms tottering on the very
brink of the precipice. She screamed faintly and closed
her eyes; When she opened them again the two forms
were still struggling; but Ted, by sheer main strength, it
seemed, had managed to force his opponent back a little
way from the edge. The next -instant Ted's leg was
erooked around behind Reading’s, his whole weight and
strength were put forth in a forward lunge, and: Reading
was cast bodily through the air, landing on his back on
the mossy surface of the ledge of rock. He lay there,
bleeding and apparently unconscious; and Ted Strong,
drawing back a step, looked at him. The same steady
smile was still playing about Ted’s: mouth, and the: same
look of confidence shining from his brown eyes... Almost
at the same instant Kit Summers came swinging down the
lariat that was stretched up the face of rock and stood
beside them.

“Hello, Louise!” he said. “Ted, that was a dandy back
fall. I was watching the scrap from the top,.and just at
the right moment was going to drop a latiat over the head
of. this.man, He. seemed to be rather anxious to push
you over the edge there, but I saw that you could handle
him all right.”

' Ted paid no attention at this moment, He stepped to-
ward the side of Louise, who was very pale and swaying
as. though she were about to faint, She. gladly. clasped
Ted’s,arm and clung to him. oes Poa
“Oh, Ted!” she said. “I thought you were going over.”

Ted slipped his arm about her oe

fashion for a moment. Then she drew. upright and stepped

away from him, Hf me
“T am all tight now,” she said. “I am ashamed of my-
self for feeling faint in that fashion.” oak
“Who is this mutt, anyhow?” said Kit, looking at the
prostrate form of Reading §% 907.7: :
Reading had regained his consciousness and was scram-

supported her in that

BILL WEEKLY.

bling slowly to his feet. He was a sorry sight. His cut

<upper lip was swollen. until it was more than twice the
“size of his nether one; there was a discoloration under

one eye which within an hour would develop into a very
ugly blaék mark; his clothes were torn, and there was a
break in his flesh over his jawbone where Ted had struck
him the first time.

He looked at the two khaki-clad boys, at the ropes dan-
gling up the side of the cliff, and at the girl who was stand-
ing between them,

“You'll know who I am before I get through with you,”
he snarled: “What do you mean By .attacking me -that
way?” STE be

Vou know very well what I meant,” said Ted sharply.
“T want you to apologize at once to Miss Rossiter.”

“Apologize nothing!” ms

Ted took a step toward him and looked sternly into.
his face. ies é

‘Don’t strike him again, Ted,” pleaded Louise. “He is
sorry for what he did now.” ea

“T know who you are now,’ said Ted, “because I rec-
ognize your face. You are a friend of Tom Black, who
is a friend of mine, and on that account I will treat you
with more consideration than I would have shown you
otherwise. I see that Tom and the rest of the party are
coming up the hill. If you apologize to this young lady,
and she accepts your apology, I will say nothing about
what happened, and you may explain the condition of
your face in any way you see fit. The. rest have not. seen
what has been going on up here.”

“T am willing to accept his apology,”
think that he has been punished enough.”
. “T£ you don’t apologize,” continued Ted, “and if you
so much as dare to look disrespectfully at Miss Rossiter, |
will thrash you within an inch of your life and then tell
my reasons for so doing.” i

“Why should I apologize?” growled Reading.

“For your rudeness.”

“When you attacked me without any warning?”

. “Speak quickly. I won’t wait much longer.’

“l apologize,” said Reading, in sulky tones.

“Do you accept the apology, Louise?”

“Certainly, if the mreans it? 5 318 eae a) +

“If he doesn’t mean it, I'll break his neck,” said. -hot-
headed Kit Summers.

“TI. mean it, otherwise I wouldn't have said it,” said

said Louise, “I

Reading.

At this moment Tom Black and Daisy Miller appeared
on the edge: Tom stared at the two khaki-clad “forms
in amazement. He had not expected to see them there.
Daisy’s pretty face flushed with pleasure at sight of Strong.

“Hello!” said Black: “You fellows must have dropped
from the clouds,” — RE

“We were coming through by the pass,” said Ted, “and
we climbed Eagle Rock from the other side. The rest. of
our party are camped in the pass about a mile from here.
We intended to ride in to Black Mountain this after-

_noon.,”

Black’s eyes fell on Reading, who was trying to wipe
the blood from his face and make himself more present-
able generally. .

“Great, Czesar’s ghost!” he cried, “Whatever happened
to you, Sam? You look as if you had been run through
a carpet-beating factory.” Hagen :

“I fell on the rocks coming up,” said Reading sulkily.
“T don’t see that it is any one’s business but my. own how
I look.” ie

“Of course not,” said Black good-humoredly, “and I
can’t say that I blame you for getting grouchy when you've
had a tumble like that.” ae .

“Ul help you. dress it,” said Ted. . “I generally. carry
some antiseptic gauze in my pocket, as I am likely to get
Cuts and wounds myself now and then.” ~ ie

At first Reading looked as if he were going to refuse
Ted’s offer of help, but he thought better of it and ac-
cepted. Kit and Louise stood by without a word and saw
Ted dressing the wounds of the man he had been fighting
a short time before. As for the others, they had seen
nothing of the fight and had no idea that Reading had
been injured otherwise than by a tumble onthe rocks.

- £0 BE CONTINUED. | ae

 

 
 

 

ne oe ee 5,

THE NEWS OF THE WORLD.

 

Albino Duck Shot. ie

C. M. Brooks, a McGregor hunter, has a “queer
duck” for a trophy and has had it mounted to pre-
serve aS a curiosity. He brought it down with his
gun in the wild rice fields of the Mississippi near
McGregor, Iowa, recently. It is pure white from head
to tip of tail and has red eyes.

The bird was flying in a large flock of ducks and
was plainly distinguishable from the rest a long way
off. White blackbirds, white robins, white English
sparrows, and even white crows have been known; but
hunters who have hunted ducks for a lifetime on the
Mississippi, the greatest migratory highway for
aquatic birds in the world, say it is tHe first white
duck they have ever seen or heard of. They are puz-
zled to understand how a duck so conspicuous in ap-
pearance was ever permitted to grow to maturity and
get this far south without being shot.

Like the white blackbird, the white duck is an
albino, bird students say, albinos occurring in many
species of the animal kingdom just as in people. It
has white feathers for the same reason that the human
albino has a chalky-white skin—because the substance
that gives color is absent, due to some defect in organ-
ization. ?

The red eyes of the albino duck, like those of white
mice, white rabbits, and the sacred white elephants of
the Orient, which are also albinos, are due to the same
defect in organization.

Modern Mothers—but Papooses.

Two Indian women with their babies attracted no
little attention in New York while they were waiting
for their street car the other day. The women were
dressed in clothing of modern style, but the babe
each held in her arms was.wrapped carefully in an
Indian blanket in the original Indian style.

Race for Life, Bear Pursuing.

Bears are so numerous and bold in Maine this year
that the natives don’t have to go to war to get excite-
ment. It is a popular belief that the bear fears the
hum of civilization and instinctively avoids settle-
ments; but, like most. popular beliefs, that one is
subject to frequent upsets.

One of these upsets occurred in Millford, Maine, the

other day when a bear described as “big as a cow’

pursued Mrs. Alice McAllister and Mrs. Millie Powers,
who were driving along the country highway on their
return from Greenfield.

Mrs. Powers lashed the horse into its top speed

to keep ahead of the fast-loping bear; but at a turn >

in the soad the front axle of their carriage broke,
pitching them into the ditch.

In an instant the women were on their feet and
freed the horse. They mounted the animal and rode
at top speed. After a race of a mile or more they
reached the Fred Allen place, but there was no one

at home. They barred the doors and telephoned to
the Tom Simmons farm for help. A dozen men were
soon out after the bear; but no trace of him could be
found. ‘

War Bread Reaches New York.

“Wheatless Wednesday” became a stern reality in
New York recently, introducing thousands of persons
to well-camouflaged American war bread.

But the war bread, instead of proving the horror
which writers in the belligerent countries of Europe
have portrayed it, turned out to be nothing more of-
fensive than well-baked, palatable rye bread, graham
bread, corn bread, and oatmeal rolls. Those who
thoughtlessly asked for wheat bread at the restaurants .
and hotels beamed with patriotism when they were
reminded that the day was wheatless.

All the big hotels of the city inaugurated Wheatless
Wednesdays. Even the Broadway cafés, which cater
to the midnight moths, of the white-light zone, enlist
in the war and serve no wheat bread.

Twins Marry Twins.

When twins wed twins! In this case it was a wed-
ding of two roses. He pinned a rose on her as iden-
tification tags. One rose was red, the other white.
Leland and Lorand Tabler, twin brothers, of Kansas
City, led Alice and Gertrude Moore, twin sisters, of
Adrian, Missouri, to the altar in a double, ceremony
one day recently at Kansas City, Missouri.

The brides were dressed exactly alike; so were the
bridegrooms. The bridesmaids and best men could
not tell which was their bride and bridegroom.

How did each bridegroom tell which was his bride?
He kept tight hold of her arm during the ceremony,
and when it was over, before he let go, Leland pinned
a red rose on his bride, Lorand a white rose on his.

The minister, the Reverend Charles Coombs, of the
First Christian Church, the attendants, the guests,
and even the bridegrooms themselves, wondered how
the tangle could be straightened out if the brides, just
-to be mischievous, exchanged roses.

&

Black Hand Agent Shot Butler.

The young man who shot down the butler ef Mrs.
Horatio N. Slater, society leader and charitable worker
of Boston, Massachusetts, recently, in an attempt to
kill Mrs. Slater, was the tool of blackmailers, detec-
tives say. They announced they had Black Hand let-
ters demanding money from Mrs. Slater and threat-
ening her with death.

The prisoner, who gave his name as Harry Bass, of
New York, is characterized as an idealist with an
anarchistic twist, who would easily become the tool
of an unscrupulous gangs.

Bass told the police he was twenty-two/ years of
age, but admitted later that he was only sixteen. He-
said he lived at No. 14 Chambers Street, New York

 
BUFFALO

28 NEW
City. He did not intend to shoot the butler, he told
the police, but expressed regret that he had not killed
Mrs. Slater and announced that the electric chair had
no terror for him,

“Thousands are dying on the battlefields of Europe
for their principles,” he exclaimed, “Why should I be
airaid to die for mine? Down with Wall Street!”

A quantity of radical literature was found in his
possession, and he boasted that his ideals were con-
tained in the writings of Emma Goldman and Alex-
ander Berkman.

He told the police his father sent him to America
from Russia when he was four yéars old and that he
had attended the New York schools until he was about
to enter the eighth grade,

The detectives learned that he was arrested by the
Brookline police nearly a year ago for carrying a
concealed weapon. At that time he said he was
Nathan Swartz, of No. 11 Chambers Street, New Vork.

When: asked why he wanted to kilt Mrs. Slater, the
police say that Bass told them it was because she
represented to him a type. He said he did not know
anything about her except what he read in magazines
and newspapers.

Bear Steals Camp’s Hams.

With hams at present prices, even a rich corpora-
tion like the Great Northern Paper Company cannot
afford to feed bears on that sort of fodder, and so it
was a distinct relief to the boss of the company’s camp
on Elm Stream, nine miles from Seeboomook Falls,
Maine, when the camp timekeeper, Raymond Dyer, of
this city, acted.

In the camp on Elm Stream was a barrel of smoked
hams. One night recently the barrel was full. Next
morning the barrel was nearly as empty as a bass
drum, the cook found. Bear #racks were around the
building. ;

Dyer set a trap. Later the crew were aroused by
a tremendous grunting and thrashing. The ham thief
was in the trap, fat, furry, and furious, securely
pinched by his right forepaw. A logser smashed ‘the
bear’s skull with an ax. The men ate some of the
bear meat, and Dyer got the skin, which he sold for
a good price in Bangor, and also collected the State
bounty, $5, from. City Clerk Victor Brett.

Unusual Moose-hunting Feat.

Hunting the moose in the wilds of the great North-
west isn’t in it with riding-one for thrills.. Two hunt-
ers, recently paddling in Rainy Lake, Canada, headed
off a big bull in the middle of the water and swiftly
paddied alongside. Letting himself into the water, one
of the hunters, after poising himself for a moment on
the animal’s back, seized him at the pit of his sub-
merged antlers and rode him to shore, while his com-
panion applauded the difficult and seldom-performed
feat.

i Pole Slashes New Vork Girls.

Four yotinge women were slashed on Broadway, New
York, in the financial district, one noon recently, with
a potato knife by Antoni Karasincki, a Pole, who told
the police a rambling story of being bothered for

BILL “WEEKLY.

twelve years by women, against whom he decided to
avenge himself. He said he had complained to Wash-
ington in a letter, asking to have the annoyance
stopped, but, getting no answer, determined to take
the matter into his own hands.

The attacks were made in different parts of lower
Broadway and threw the thoroughfare into a turmoil
while the victims were being cared for and the hunt
proceeded for the mysterious slayer, who escaped after
each attack. He was finally picked out in the crowds
by his second victim and later identified by another.

The young women slashed were Irene Riley, cut
across the face; Abigail de Jongh, cut in the neck;
Florence Rogers, cut. in the left shoulder; and Edith
Fox, slashed on the right cheek. None of the wounds
was serious.

Any Rags or Bones Dictator.

The advisability of a national junk dictator has re-
cently been called to the attention of the Council of
National Defense. Conservative estimates are that
more than $1,500,000,000 can be saved by reclamation
of scrap iron, scrap metals, woolen rags, cotton rags,
old rubber, paper stock, bags and bagging, cotton and
wool waste, mattress fillings, bones, hair, scrap leather,
bottles, broken glass, and celluloid. Many of these
articles can be remade into needed implements to help
win the war.

The Advisory Committee of the Defense Council and
the War Industries Board have considered the matter.
“Winning the war means cutting out the waste,” it is
declared. Some scraps contain items valuable and
sorely needed.

Blown Out of Bed.

Some time ago a monument worker named William
Heuss, of Mount Kisco, New York, caused the arrest
of an Italian who was shooting squirrels near his
home. The gunner was fined $5, and as he left the
courtroom bystanders say he announced that he would
“get even.”

Early one morning recently Heuss and his year-old
child were blown out of bed by an explosion that shat-
tered the front porch, smashed all the windows in the
house, and wrecked the Whole first floor. The Italian
who talked of revenge has disappeared from his home,
and the police, taking this as grounds for his guilt, are
searching for him. ;

Boy Violinist Praised.

Jascha Heifetz, the seventeen-year-old Russion vio-
linist who won a remarkable triumph at his début in
Carnegie Hall, New York, recently, after hearing read
to him all the fine things said about him in the papers,
put on his coat and hat and went to hear Fritz Kreisler
play in the same auditorium,

The many flattering comments of the young artist’s
‘performance did not turn his head. He took them
in the same unassuming and dignified manner that
characterized his platform appearance.

At his home, where he is living with his parents, he
expressed gratitude for the reception given him by his
first American audience. He had been listening to
Similar expressions of approval ever since he was

 
 

 

 

seven years old, when he gave his first successful con-
cert. Still he was not certain of his welcome here,
coming a stranger and practically unheralded.

The violinist already is fond of America, although
he has been in the country but a few weeks. He had
a hard time getting here, too. With his parents and
two sisters, he left Volna, his home, last summer, trav-
eled across Siberia with many interruptions, to Japan,
and so to our Pacific coast. The family has relatives
in Boston, and, after placing the sisters in a school
there, the parents and their gifted son came to New
York some weeks ago.

“IT am immensely pleased,” Heifetz said, “and am
extremely grateful that the public evidently liked my
playing, and thankful for their approval. I hope I
shall continue to deserve their favor.”

Extract Oi! from Shale Rock.

Recént news reports state that Nevada capitalists
are forming a syndicate to extract gasoline, natural
gas, and other products from Nevada shale beds with
the recently invented Crane process, which has been
highly commended by Doctor Day, of the Geological
Survey, and other prominent government experts.

Enormous deposits of shale are found in Nevada,
and tests indicate a ton of the material will yield 90
gallons of oil, 4,500 to 5,000 cubic feet of natural gas,
and largé quantities of ammonia, paraffin wax, and
other products.

It is planned to erett several plants in the State and
work on the first will probably commence in the spring
at a point near Elko.

Hid Thefts Twenty-four Years.

Recent news states that after having for twenty-
four years covered up his speculations, Harrison Kel-
ley, trusted secretary of the People’s Building and
Loan Association, of Chicago, ended his life in Lake
Michigan a short time ago.

Kelley tried to beat the grain market in 1893 and
lost. Then he took some more of the money intrusted
to: him and lost that. By 1910 he had lost $100,000,
and, ever in the hope that his luck would change, he
kept on appropriating money intrusted to him until
his peculations totaled $200,000. Fake loans and forged
mortgages were used to cover up his transactions.
Meanwhile Kelley lived simply and frugally, and was
believed to have accumulated a fortune. But the strain
began to tell at last, and, rather than face exposure
and prison, he drowned ‘himself.

*

Aged Man Meets Father.

Recent news from Live Oak, California, tells how
the other day Anthony Vaughn, sixty-five, saw his
father, Nathaniel Vaughn, eighty-five, for the first
time; and the father took his new-found son home
with him to Maine, and the two will live the rest of
their lives together. :

Nathaniel Vaughn was a mate on a whaling vessel
when his wife gave birth to the san, Anthony.

_ The whaling cruise, followed by another long cruise
as soon as the whaler reached port, separated Vaughn
from his wife for an additional year, and when the
seaman finally reached his home in Maine, mother

’

NEW BUFFALO BILL WEEKLY. ee 29

and son, by force of circumstances, had emigrated to
the West.

Anthony Vaughn came finally to the conclusion that
his father had been lost at sea, ;

Picking grapes a few weeks ago with an itinerant
laborer from the East, Vaughn learned that his father
was still alive in Maine. The son wrote to his father,
who made a trip to California to see his boy. :

“I'm taking my lad home with me,” said his aged
father. “I’m going home with daddy,” said the son.

“Whose Bear?” Asks Attorney for City.

From St. Paul, Mifinesota, comes the news that Cor-
poration Counsel O’Neill has written to Doctor Justus
Ohage, city health officer, to inquire when and under
what cirtumstanhces the doctor wished $10,000 worth
of vicious black bear on the city of St. Paul.

The question of ownership of the bear was revived
when Joseph Rothwell, who was clawed and chewed
by the bear at Harriet Island, filed notice with the
council of a suit for $10,000 damages. Rothwell was
measuring the cages on the island when he went to
the rescue of a park attendant attacked by the bear
and-was hitnself mauled before the animal was shot.

Corporation Counsel O’Neill asserted that he has
no record that the city ever accepted the bear from
the city health officer.

Huge Ears from Ancient Corn.

How would you like to eat ah eat of corn grown
from seéd 1,800 years old?) Good corn, too; éars meéas-
uting 14 inches in lehgth and picked from a stalk
standing over 17 feet in height! Can’t be done, you
say, usiig a joker’s expression to demonstrate your
skepticism of any such agricultural accomplishment.
Well, you could if you lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin,
and the owner of the wonderful ears would give or
sell you one.

The plant, produced from seed 1,800 years old, was
grown in the garden of William A. Akin, in Milwaukee.
There is no other plant like it anywhere in Wisconsin,
and possibly nowhere in the United States. It meas-
ures a trifle over 11 feet in height and produced 7 ears
of corn each 14 inches in length.

Mr. Akin traces the life of the cornstalk to a seed
at least 1,800 years old. He has data to verify his
attestation that the plant is the direct product of a
seed that was buried by people who lived at the time
of Christ.

Doctor E. S. Curry, a notéd atcheologist, on one of
his explorations in a Western State, discovered a
strange mound on which a tree. was growing. He cut
down the tree arid dug into the mound. The roots of
the tree had wound themselves around the mound,
and he easily found that the tree was six hundred
years old.

From the character of the other vegetation arotind
he statéd that it was his firm conviction that the
mound waé placed there 1,800 years ago. In this

mound he found oésified bones, stone weapons, and
implements of one kind and another. Among other
things he found a hermetically sealed stone jar con-
taining 11 ears of corn of the prehistoric Red Dent

  
39 NEW BUFFALO
variety. The age of this corn was further verified by
the cement used to seal the lid of the receptacle.

This cement was found to be the same kind that was

used in sealing mummy cases in the pyramids of Egypt.

Mr. Akin claims that if he had known anything
about raising corn his stalk would have attained a
much greater height, but as it was he merely planted
it and let it grow.

Saves Girl by Grip.

A talented young artist named Virginia Swope was
taken from her room in a hotel and placed in the psy-*
chopathic ward of Bellevue Hospital, in New York,
recently.

A diagnosis of insanity came as the ches of a
night and day of anxiety. At one stage the girl hung
head downward for several minutes from a third floor
of the Vandyck Studios, 989 Eighth Avenue.

A policeman inside saved her life by grasping her
ankles after she had broken through the sash in an
-attempt to throw herself into the street.

Indians Want War Paint.

Two hundred fine young buck Indians, for once
ordered by the Great White Father at Washington to
get ready to fight, have been stringing into Camp
Bowie, Fort Worth, Texas, from Camp Travis, Okla-
homa, and are now in-the process of being made fit to
fight their way to Unter Den Linden along with sev-
eral thousand other Texas and Oklahoma men, mem-
bers of the National Army.

One universally expressed matter of regret on the
part of the men who came recently, as well as hun-

dreds of other Indians who may later be added to -

these drafted ones, is the fact the United States army
rules exclude, of course, the wearing of feather head-
dress pieces and the daubing of war paint. The boys
say if they could doll up when they get on the other
side, before going into action, they are pretty sure
they would have the stage to themselves as far as
Fritz was concerned.

Girl Bootblacks in Appeal.

Girl bootblacks appeared before the city council in
Boston recently to oppose Mayor Curley’s proposed
ordinance to prohibit the oe of girls in shoe-
shining shops.

Miss Harriet A. Duffy, manager: of one establish-
ment, said she received a salary of $15 a week, and,
with tips, her earnings, on which she supports’ her
mother and sisters, average between $25 and $30 a
week. The girls under her, she said, were paid $12
a week, plus tips.

These girls afterward told the council that they
earned nearly $30 a week, including both tips and sal-
ary. The council took the matter under advisement.

Has Fun with Foe.
There is a German submarine commander who is

known throughout the American flotilla in European

waters as “Kelly.” His real name’is quite different,

but the Americans have dubbed him “Kelly of the

Emerald Isle,” and the name will stick in the songs
and stories of the navy as long as the war is talked
about, recent news states, .

BILL WEEKLY.

“Kelly” earned his name by his display of quite
un-German humor. He has become the hero of stories
told in the forecastle and on the quarter-deck. But
all of these stories are true and probably some of them
have grown in the telling.

“Kelly” commands a mine-laying U-boat which pays
frequent visits to the district patrolled by the Amer-
ican destroyers. When he has finished his appointed
task of distributing his mines where they will do the
most harm, he generally devotes a few minutes to a
prank of some kind. Sometimes he contents himself
with leaving a note, flying from a buoy, scribbled in
schoolboy English and addressed to his American
enemy.

His most audacious exploit, however—if the legends
of the forecastle are to be belicved—was a trip which
he made several months ago to Dublin, where he
stayed two days at a leading hotel, afterward joining
his U-boat somewhere up the west coast. He is said
to have informed the British of his exploit by leaving
his receipted hotel bill attached to one of their buoys.

Still another of “Kelly’s’ more recent stunts was to
plant the German flag on a rising of the coast line.
It was the first time that the British and Americans
knew just where he and his men had set foot, and they

. shared the excitement of the village folk who awoke

one morning to find a new kind of flag flying from
their native soil. At first they could not make out
just what it was.

But when they made sure it was the German colors
they were furious. These poor fisher folk were in no
mood for this latest display of German humor, so they,
according to report, burned the flag and set a watch
for “Kelly.”

General Pershing’s Pies.

Ensign Mary Sheldon, a Chicago Salvation Army
worker, is the only woman who is going to have a
finger in General Pershing’s pie.

Major D. W. Agnew, who is in charge of the Sal-
vation Army war work, told fey of General Per-
shing’s request for a “pie maker.”

“The Salvation Army cabled the general when he
landed in France,” said Major Agnew, “and asked him
what it could do to be of service to him: His answer
came immediately: ‘Send me somebody who can make
apple pie.”

Ensign Mary Sheldon was the person who qualified
for the position of pastry maker, and she sailed for
France with all possible speed. She is now established
ina Salvation Army camp near American headquarters
and—um-m-m-m !—those Dies.

Gold Strike Causes Stampede in Alaska.

Rich gold deposits have been discovered in the
Goodnews Bay district of western Alaska, and a big
stampede of mining men from Bethel and the entire
Kuskokwim River country is on, recent news from
Seattle, Washington, states.

The strike was made about 25 miles fet the head

of Goodnews Bay, and mining men who have com-

pleted a survey of the ground say that it will prove
one of the richest“in that part of the North. One
man with a pick and a’pan made a clean-up of ove!

 
  

' ment. The value of the pans ranges from $1 to $3.

It is a placer strike, the kind that the ordinary min-
» ing man can work.. Probably by this time all the pay
' ground in sight has been staked. Food and supplies
are going to be decidedly scarce in both the Goodnews
Bay and Kuskokwim River districts, and any one who

goes in had better be well prepared for a: long and -

hard winter. ._There were between 25 and 30 men
working claims back of Goodnews Bay, and: it was.
predicted that they would take out. approximately
$340,000 before next spring, weather permitting. .

Crew Adopts French Family.

‘The erew of an American warship patroling the
steamer lanes off the coast of France has just
“adopted” a French family consisting of a mother and
four minor children, and raised a fund for their tem-
porary Support.

The adopted family was driven from their home in
a village near St. Quentin after their home had been
burned by invading Germans and their ‘crops and
orchards pillaged and destroyed. The father was
killed in one of the early battles of the war.

Several months ago the family went to a seaport
city, where the mother obtained employment which
just enabled her to provide herself and the children
with the bare necessities of life. Soon after the ar-
rival of the American warship, the sailors discovered
the family’s position and immediately presented to
the ‘mother a large purse. The children wére taken

into the stores and provided with candy and other

luxuries.

Ever since the American ship has made this port
as its base this family has wanted for neither the
necessities nor the luxuries of life.

Old: Coffeepot Yields Cash.

hy an Told coffaepet thrown away a few. days ne
the death of Mrs. Hannah Gale at Tuckerton, New
Jersey, recently, was found $600-in bank notes...”

This discovery led neighbors to search the. house,
and in the attic was found $3,000, representing a life

savings, which included part of the salvage Mrs. Gale.
received for work done in. saving part of the cargo.
of a.boat which ran ashore at Tuckerton twenty. years. ;

ago.

The money she got. then was put in a separate en-
velope and its source marked. The seal was unbroken,
and the’ money. had probably not been tong dg: all of
that time.

Dog Shakes Snakes.

F, H. Guier and son Dennis, who are prominent citi-
zens of Mayfield; Kentucky, and whose record for
truth and veracity cannot be questionéd, say that re-
cently while they were suckering tobacco their atten-
tion was’attracted by the family dog barking and mak-
ing a peculiar alarm. They went to the dog and saw
the animal grab a big snake aud begin shaking it, In

doing so, young snakes the size and length of a lead

pencil began to scatter about them.

The. men examined the young: reptiles as found
them to be -copperheads, but the snake which the dog’

NEW BUFFALO

 

| $1,000 in a day, and the whole camp is wild with excite- :

_W. Elliott, of 804 West Seventieth Street,

 

BILL ‘WEEKLY. Le at

 

attacked was a he aces snake 4 feet long. They

were not satisfied with this strange condition, and on |
further examination they found that the chicken: snake
had swallowed a copperhead snake 214 feet long which ©

contained the little snakes. Seven of the youngsters

were found.

. Kisses for Recruits... -

Kisses and oratory drew a crowd of 5,000 persons
about the U. S. S. Recrwit in Union Square, New York,
recently. The kisses. were the sifts of Miss Marie
Antoinette Elliott: to/ three men who volunteered for
the navy, and-everybody got the oratory, for the
speaker, J: Henry @mythe, junior, used a megaphone:

He formerly was cheer leader of the University of
Pennsylvania, and has been identified for several years
with publicity work for the Republican party.

Miss Elliott, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Richaed
4s testing”
a theory of her own that. she has as: many-kisses to
spare as there are: men in New York ready to: oF
unteer their services to’ the navy. *

Would Put Woman in British Cabinet.

A woman cabinet minister for England j is ‘one of the i
possibilities of the near future. Wide support nas |
been’ given to the proposal that a woman should oc-.
cupy the office of Minister of Health, which 1st, Be:
added | to the British cabinet immediately after ‘the
war. Lady Frances Balfour, in a statement. in Supe
port of the proposal, said recen tly: : ‘

“We have lately reconstructed our ideas. as 6, the
place of women in our self-governing. constitution.
Who, then, would be so worthy for the new post of
Minister” of Health as a woman? She would be rep-
resented in Parliament by a male un \dersecretary, and \
I think I can assure you that our ideal woman Health
Minister would give her undersecretary plenty to do.

“A splendid vision of reconstructive work lies before .

her, And when we remember all the things that the
new department must handle, they seem matters.

where women are the practical leaders. The Minister
of Health will need to be inspector, guardian, coun-
sellor, expert on food values, doctor, nurse, cook, and
sanitary expert. If a man were selected he would nee

a cabinet of his own, composed entirely of women.”

Bars Women from Jury Duty.

If New York women want to serve on juries, now
they have the vote, they will have to scurry around
and make their own laws. Frederick O'Byrne, Com-
missioner of Jurors, declared recently he would take
no steps to initiate legislation providing for women
jurors, although he admitted there was great need
of them because war had drawn so many amen. irom
the jury lists,

The present law reads that “a male citizen” is eli-
gible for service on juries, and this can be changed
any time the women voters af the State demand it,
by the simple process of a bill im the legislature. Inci-
dentally, Commissioner O'Byrne pointed out, this bill
has mo connection with the passage ef the suffrage”
referendum. Women could have pushed suck. 2° bil
years ago had it been worth aan ;

 

     
ce?

Quite the most exciting thing discovered by the
newly enfranchised women voters concerning the jury
laws is the provision that requires that citizens who
failed to vote at the preceding election be placed at
the top when the jury lists are made up.

“If the women follow this system in their law,’
chuckled Commissioner O’Byrne, “they'll have the
‘antis’ serving first on the juries. The law requires
that we make two lists—the first of men who failed
to vote in the last election, and the second of the reg-
ular voters who have pores all their civic respon-
sibilities.”

Commissioner O’Byrne said he would be in favor
ef a bill which would make jury duty for women
optional.

A discussion took place in the commissioner’s of-
fice concerning the effect of women on juries. A vet-
eran juryman “thought it would be “terrible” because
women would be too lenient.

“In a woman’s case,” said ae
acquittal.”

Suffragists, when questioned on the point, were non-
committal.

‘

‘you'd never get an

Service Flag Unfurled at Newsboys’ Home.

A service flag 24 by 34 feet,

furled recently at the Brace ‘Memorial Newsboys’
Home, 14 New Chambers Street, New York. A letter
from Mayor-eleect Hylan which was read at the cere-
monies was in part as follows:
_“The boys whom we honor to-day well realize that
this will be the land of the free only while it is the
home iof the brave. They have given their all for
America, and we,
Americans, must be ready to support them with our
all. An America united in spirit and sacrifice is in-
vincible—and America will so be found.”

Two Children Killed; Car Stalls in Train’s Path.

Two children were killed instantly in Kingston, New
York, recent news states, when the automobile in
which they were riding crashed through the lowered
gates at a West. Shore Railroad crossing, stalled on the
track, and was struck by a fast passenger train.

The children, Rose and Emma Cecicco, nine and
eleven years old, were left to their fate by the driver
of. the car, who fled when the motor stopped. Three
other children in the machine escaped with bruises,

Americans Get Crosses for Bravery.

Thomas Lamont and Harry Thompson, both regis~
tered from New York, were recently decorated with
the War Cross with Palms for bravery in transporting
munitions under heavy bombardment in the recent
French offensive on the Chemin des Dames. Mr. La-
mont also received the Military Medal, the highest
purely military distinction in the French army.

.The automobile transport which Mr. Lamont and
Mae, Thompson were driving was struck by a German
~ shell. Mr. Lamont’s left hand was blown nearly off,
and its amputation was necessary. He-also received
other. severe wounds. Mr. Thompson was wounded

badly. »

with 2,520 stars, was un-

if we wish to consider ourselves .

a9 | | “NEW BUFFALO BILL WEEKLY.

R. T. Scully, a Princeton graduate and leader of the
camion section, also reecived the War Cross for his
action in binding Mr. Lamont’s wounds and rushing
him and Mr. Thompson toa hospital. His action prob-
ably saved Mr. Lamont’s life. All three men are mem-
bers of the American Field Service.

Joffre Heads Fatherless Children.

Marshal Joffre has accepted the active presidency
of the Fatherless Children of France, Miss Luisita
Leland, of 563 Park Avenue, New York, secretary of
the American National Executive Committee of the
organization, stated recently. It was the American
Committee of the Fatherless Children of France who
honored Marshal Joffre while in this country last
spring by raising $425,000 to care fear the children
orphaned at the Marne.

Miss Leland also announced -that recently $250,000
was cabled Paris through J. P. Morgan & Co., in ap-
preciation of the new duties that now fall upon Mar- .
shal Joffre. This sum is to be used for the French
children made fatherless anywhere in Europe by the
great war.

Aids Baby to Painless Death.

Paul Hodzima, the thirty-months-old child that Doc-
tor Harry J. Haiselden practically condemned to death
because he was microcephalous, is’ slowly dying under
the course of treatment advised by the physician. Mrs.
Paulina Hodzima, the child’s mother, administers the
treatment.

“You,see,” she said recently, “how hard it is for him
to breathe. He’s well formed otherwise, and would
be all right were it not for the awful hard breathing.
Oh, I love my baby, but I can’t bear to see him suffer.
I have been giving him the medicine prescribed by
Doctor Haiselden, and have made up my mind it is
for the best. I would like to keep him, and it nearly
breaks my heart to think of him going. But I don't
want him to be a burden to himself, always suffering.
He cries continually, and is unable to sit up.”

“The boy’s head is malformed and-he suffers from
a stricture of the trachea which causes labored breath-
ing,” said Doetor Haiselden. “He would always be a
hopeless idiot. The treatment I am directing will re-

\sult in death for the child within two or three months.

In the meantime, opiates are being administered to
prevent the little one suffering the slightest pain.
This, I believe, is the best way. His case is incurable,
and an operation would relieve some minor ailments
but would never restore his mentality or permit his
mental growth.”

Her Dad No Slacker.

“I will support my daughter or do anything else
Uncle Sam asks.”

This was the reply of Albert Hambach, wealthy
plumbing-supply dealer, of Seattle, Washington, when
he was questioned recéntly concerning the exemption
claim of his son-in-law, Daniel E. Hughes, sales man-
ager of the Hambach concern.

Hughes claimed that his wife was dependent upon

him. It will be recommended that his éxemption be
revoked.

 
 
New Buffalo Bill

iS s UE D
EV ERY
‘TUESDAY

Weekly

BEAUTIFUL
COLORED
COVERS

 

 

There is no need of our telling American readers how interesting the stories of the adventures of Buffalo Bill,

as scout and plainsman, really are.

voted to be masterpieces of Western adventure fiction.
Buffalo Bill is more popular to-day than he ever was, and, consequently, everybody ought to know all there is

to know about him.

great man, as by reading the New Buffalo Bill Weekly.

We give herewith a list of ‘some of the back numbers in print.

These stories have been read exclusively in this weekly for many years, and are

In no manner-can you become so thoroughly acquainted with the actual habits and life of this

You can have your news dealer order them c:

they will be sent direct by the publishers to any address upon receipt of the price in money or postage stamips.

 

61—Buffalo Bill’s Treasure Train.
62—Buffalo Bill Among the Blackfeet.
63—Buffalo Bill’s Border Beagles.
64—Buffalo Bill and the Bandits in Black.
65—Buffalo Bill on the Deadwood Trail.
66—Buffalo Bill in the Cafion of Death.
67—Buffalo Bill and Billy, the Kid.
68—Buffalo Bill and the Robber Ranch.
69—Buffalo Bill in the Land of Wonders.
70—Buffalo Bill and the Traitor Soldier.
71—Buffalo Bill’s Dusky Trailers.
72—Buffalo Bill’s Diamond Mine.
73—Buffalo Bill and the Pawnee Serpent.
74—_Buffalo Bill’s Scarlet Hand.
75—Buffalo Bill Running the Gantlet.
76—Buffalo Bill’s Leap in the Dark.
77—Buftfalo Bill’s Daring Plunge.
78—Buffalo Bill’s Desperate Mission.
79—Buffalo Bill’s Ghost Raid.
80—Buffalo Bill’s Traitor Guide.
81—Buffalo Bill’s Camp Fires.
82—Buffalo Bill Up a Stump.
83—Buffalo Bill’s Secret Foe:
84—Buffalo Bill’s Master Stroke.
85—Buffalo Bill and the Skeleton Horse-
man.
86—Buffalo Bill and the Brazos Terror.
87—Buffalo Bill’s Dance of Death.
88—Buffalo Bill and the Creeping Terror.
89—Buffalo Bill and the Brand of Cain.
90—Buffalo Bill and the Mad Millionaire.
91—-Buffalo Bill’s Medicine Lodge.
92—Buffalo Bill in Peril.
93—Buffalo Bill’s Strange Pard.
94——Buffalo Bill in the Death Desert.
95—Buffalo Bill in No-Man’s Land.
96—Buffalo Bill’s Border Ruffians.
97—Buffalo Bill’s Black Eagles.
98—Buffalo Bill’s Rival.
99—Buffalo Bill and the Boy Bugler.
100—Buffalo Bill and the White Specter.
101—Buffalo Bill’s Death Defiance.
102—Buffalo Bill and the Barge Bandits.
103—Buffalo Bill, the Desert Hotspur.
104—-Buffalo Bill’s Wild Range Riders.
105—Buffalo Bill’s Red Retribution.
106—Buffalo Bill’s Death Jump.
107—Buffalo Bill’s Aztec Runners.
108—Buffalo Bill’s Fiery Eye.
109—Buffalo Bill’s Gypsy Band.
110—Buffalo Bill’s Maverick.
111—Buffalo Bill, the White Whirlwind.
112—Buffalo Bill in Old Mexico.
113—Buffalo Bill’s Flying Wonder.
114—-Buffalo Bill’s Ice Chase.
115—Buffalo Bill’s Gold Hunters.
116—Buffalo Bill and the Wolf Master.
117—Buffalo Bill’s Message from the Dead.
118—Buffalo Bill’s Desperate Dozen.
119—RBuffalo Bill’s Whirlwind Chase.
120—Buffalo Bill Haunted.
121—-Buffalo Bill’s Fight for Life.
122—Buffalo Bill and the Pit of Horror.
122— Buffalo Bill in the Jaws of Death.
124—- Buffalo Bill’s Dance With Death.
125—Buffalo Bill’s Hidden Gold.
126—Buffalo Bill’s Outlaw Trail.
127—Buffalo Bill and the Indian Queen.
128—Buffalo Bill and the Mad Marauder.
129—Buffalo Bill’s Ghost Dance.
130—Buffalo Bill’s Peace Pipe.
131—Buffalo Bill’s Red Nemesis.
132—-Buffalo Bill’s Enchanted Mesa.
133—Buffalo Bill in the Desert of Death.
134—Buffalo Bill’s Pay Streak.
135—Buffalo Bill on Detached Duty.

+138

1386—Buffalo Bill’s Army Mystery.
137—Butffalo Bill’s Surprise Party.
Buffalo Bill’s Great Ride.
189—Buffalo Bill’s Water Trail.
140—Buffalo Bill’s Ordeal of Fire.
141—Buffalo Bill Among the Man-eaters.
142—Buffalo Bill’s Casket of Pearls.
143—Buffalo Bill’s Sky Pilot.
144—Buffalo Bill’s Totem.
145—Buffalo Bill’s Flatboat Drift.
146—Buffalo Bill on Deck.
147—Buffalo Bill and the Bronchobuster.
148—Buffalo Bili’s Great Round-up.
149—Buffalo Bill’s Pledge.
150—Buffalo Bill’s Cowboy Pard.
151 3uffalo Bill and the Emigrants.
152—Buffalo Bill Among the Pueblos.
153—Buffalo Bill’s Four-footed Pards.
154—Buffalo Bill’s Protégé.
155—Buffalo Bill Ensnared.
156—Buffalo Bill’s Pick-up.
157—Buffalo Bill's Quest.
158—Buffalo Bill’s Waif of the Plains.
159—Buffalo Bill Baffled.
160—Buffalo Bill Among the Mormons.
161—Buffalo Bill’s Assistance.
162—Buffalo Bill’s Rattlesnake Trail.
163—Buffalo Bill and the Slave Dealer.
164—Buffalo Bill’s Strong Arm.
165—Buffalo Bill’s Girl Pard.
166—Buffalo Bill’s Iron Bracelets.
167—Buffalo Bill’s ““Paper Talk.”
168—Buffalo Bill’s Bridge of Fire.
169—Buffalo Bill’s Bowie.
170—Buffalo Bill and the Forty Thieves,
171—Buffalo Bill’s Mine.
172—Buffalo Bill’s Clean-up.
173—Buffalo Bill’s Ruse.
174—Buffalo Bill Overboard.
175—Buffalo Bill’s Ring.
176—Buffalo Bill’s Big Contract.
177—Buffalo Bill and Calamity Jane.
178—Buffalo Bill’s Kid Pard.
179—Buffalo Bill’s Desperate Plight.
180—Buffalo Bill’s Fearless Stand.
181—Buffalo Bill and the Yelping Crew.
182—-Buffalo Bill’s Guiding Hand.
183—Buffalo Bill’s Queer Quest.
184—Buffalo Bill’s Prize ‘“Get-away.”’
185—Buffalo Bill’s Hurricane Hustle.
186—Buffalo Bill’s Star Play.
187—Buffalo Bill’s Bluff.
188—Buffalo Bill’s Trackers.
189—Buffalo Bill’s Dutch Pard.
190—Buffalo Bill and the Bravo.
191—Buffalo Bill and the Quaker.
192—-Buffalo Bill’s Package of Death.
193—Buffalo Bill’s Treasure Cache.
194—-Buffalo Bill’s Private War.
195—Buffalo Bill and the Trouble-hunter.
196—Buffalo Bill and the Rope Wizard.
197—Buffalo Bill’s Fiesta.
198—-Buffalo Bill Among the Cheyennes.
199—Buffalo Bill Besieged.
°00—Buffalo Bill and the Red Hand.
201—-Buffalo Bill’s Tree-Trunk Drift.
202—-Buffalo Bill and the Specter.
203—Buffalo Bill’s Secret Message.
204—Buffalo Bill and the Horde of Her-
mosa.
205—Buffalo Bill’s Lonesome Trail.
206—Buffalo Bill’s Quarry.
207—Buffalo Bill in Deadwood.
208—Buffalo Bill’s First Aid.
209—Buffalo Bill and Old Moonlight.
210—Buffalo Bill Repaid.

211—-Buffalo Bill’s Throwback.
212—-Buffalo Bill’s ‘‘Sight-Unseen.”
213—-Buffalo Bill’s New Pard.
214—Buffalo Bill’s Winged Victory.
215—Buffalo Bill’s ‘‘Pieces-of-Eight.”
216—Buffalo Bill and the Kight Vaqueros.
217—Buffalo Bill’s Unlucky Siesta.
218—Buffalo Bill’s Apache Clue.
219—Buffalo Bill and the Apache Totem.
220—Buffalo Bill’s Golden Wonder.
221—Buffalo Bill’s Fiesta Night.
222-—Buffalo Bill and the Hatchet Boys.
223—Buffalo Bill and the Mining Shark.
224—Buffalo Bill and the Cattle Barons.
225—Buffalo Bill’s Long Odds.
226—Buffalo Bill, the Peace Maker.
227—Buffalo Bill’s Promise to Pay.
228—Buffalo Bill’s Diamond Hitch.
229—Buffalo Bill and the Wheel of Fate.
230—Buffalo Bill and the Pool of Mystery.
22 Buffalo Bill and the Deserter.
232—Buffalo Bill’s Island in the Air.
233—Buffalo Bill, Town Marshal.
234—Buffalo Bill’s Ultimatum.
235—Buffalo Bill’s Test.

236—Buffalo Bill and the Ponca Raiders.
237—Buffalo Bill’s Boldest Stroke.
238—Buffalo Bill’s Enigma.

239—Buffalo Bill’s Blockade.
240—Buffalo Bill and the Gilded Clique.
241—Buffalo Bill and Perdita Reyes.
242-Buffalo Bill and the Boomers.
243—Buffalo Bill Calls a Halt.
244—Buffalo Bill and the Ke-Week Totem.
245—Buffalo Bill’s O. K.

246—Buffalo Bill at Cafion Diablo.
247—Buffalo Bill’s Transfer.
248—Buffalo Bill and the Red Horse Hunt-

ers.

249—Buffalo Bill’s Dangerous Duty.
250—Buffalo Bill and the Chief’s Daughter.
251—Buffalo Bill at Tinaja Wells.
252—Buffalo Bill and the Men of Mendon.
253—Buffalo Bill at Rainbow’s End.
254—Buffalo Bill and the Russian Plot.

255—Buffalo Bill’s Red Triangle.
256—Buffalo Bill’s Royal Flush.
257—Buffalo Bill’s Tramp Pard.
258—Buffalo Bill on the Upper Missouri.
259—Buffalo Bill’s Crow Scout.
260—Buffalo Bill’s Opium Case.
261—Buffalo Bill’s Witchcraft.
262—-Buffalo Bill’s Mountain Foes.
263—Buffalo Bill’s Battle Cry.
264—Buffalo Bill’s Fight for the Right.
265—Buffalo Bill’s Barbecue.
266—Buffalo Bill and the Red Renegade.
267—Buffalo Bill and the Apache Kid:
268—Buffalo Bill at the Copper Barriers.
269—Buffalo Bill’s Power.
270—Buffalo Bill and the Chief Hawkchee.
271—Buffalo Bill and the Indian Girl.
272—Buffalo Bill Across the Rio Grande.
273—Buffalo Bill and the Headless Horse-

man.
274—Buffalo Bill’s Clean Sweep.
275—Buffalo Bill’s Handful of Pearls.
276—Buffalo Bill’s Pueblo Foes.

Dated December 29th, 1917.

277—Buffalo Bill’s Taos Totem.

Dated January 5th, 1918.
278—Buffalo Bill and the Pawnee Prophet.

Dated January 12th, 1918.
279—Buffalo Bill and Old Wanderoo.

Dated January 19th, 1918.
280—Buffalo Bill’s Merry War.

 

PRICE, SIX CENTS PER COPY. If you want any back numbers of our weeklies and cannot procure them from your news

dealer, they can be obtained direct from this office.

Postage stamps taken the same as money.

STREET & SMITH CORPORATION, Publishers, 79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York City