Chapter XIV: Assault and Battery

“Hello, it is!” said Flynn, striking another. “An’ it’s you? By the piper that played before Moses, but this is a quare place to be findin’ yez in.”

“No stranger than to find you here,” was the answer.

“Perhaps not,” said the scout, “but what were you doing here, hiding under that bag?”

“That’s explained easily. I came in here to see if I couldn’t help that girl, and then I heard you come in. Red Reynard and a man had gone out, and I thought you were them. So I got under that bag, for I didn’t want to be seen. I heard you talking, but the bag kept me from recognizing your voices, or else I was too scared to remember how they sounded.”

As before, he seemed sincere.

“You came here to help the girl?” said the scout.

“Yes. I’ve been lying round outside almost ever since last night, to do that, ever since I saw her and saw you, in the cabin. I’m sure she’s in here. I heard her last night, after you had gone, and to-night I heard her again. She’s in here. Just where I don’t know.”

He kept his voice low, and spoke rapidly, as if he valued time.

“What do you know about her?”

“Nothing, except what I heard.”

“What was that?”

“That she’s the daughter of a prosperous ranchman named Fernald, who has a son in the army, and she was carried off by Red Reynard through revenge for something the ranchman did. He intends to force the girl to be his wife. Her folks don’t know where she is, nor anything about her; and, of course, they don’t dream she’s in this place, which everybody thinks can’t be entered.”

“How’ does it come that yez wasn’t dhrowned?” said Flynn, mentioning a subject of which he had talked much since learning that Klamath John was still alive.

“I hardly know, myself.”

“Ye climbed that rope?”

“Yes. I was hours doing it, it seemed. Then I kept on, after getting above the mist; and finally I reached the top of the wall there. I stayed there in a hole all night; and the next day I got down into the Cup, though I nearly broke my neck doing it.”

“An’ why did yez lave the canoe? Was it treachery yez was playin’?”

The scout stopped whatever answer Klamath John might have made.

The match had burned to Flynn’s fingers and he dropped it, thus plunging the room into darkness.

“Sh!” said the scout.

“What is it?” asked Flynn.

“I heard something.”

“Marse Cody,” said Cudjo, his voice trembling, “I heahs dat river, and maybe it’s de ’gator!”

But the scout heard it again—a step, and instantly this was followed by a scream in a woman’s voice, followed by a fall, and a loud oath from a man. Though intervening walls deadened them, they were enough to electrify Buffalo Bill’s little party.

“It sounded over that way,” he said, and he moved in that direction, striking a match as he went.

As the light flamed up, he saw a box before him, against the wall. It was open and showed candles, which had been stored there by the outlaws, with other things.

The scout snatched a candle and stuck the flaming match to the wick. Holding up the lighted candle, he looked about, and all listened again for those sounds.

Klamath John stood behind the other men, having followed them.

“That was the girl,” he said, in a low tone. “I heard something like that before, and I thought it came from over that way. I was working to get over there, when you fellows came in.”

The scout moved on, with the others creeping at his heels.

The uneven floor of earth and natural stone fell away toward the river, and became damp, and then oozy; but that was the direction from which the sounds had come. Where the floor was the lowest, they beheld a dark line of water. The water of the river rose there through a large hole which connected with the stream.

“One might get out that way, by diving,” said the scout, when he observed it. “It will be well to remember that, if we’re cornered in here.”

Cudjo looked at the water with frightened eyes. “Marse Cody,” he said, in a hollow whisper, “dat ’gator could come in frough dat place!”

“Kape shtill, an’ the baste won’t know yez aire in here,” was the advice of the Irishman.

“But, Marse Flynn, dem creeturs kin smell scan’lous good, dey kin smell a mile!”

“Wurra! Kape shtill, will yez?”

Close by the water, and to be reached over a jumble of slimy stones, the scout now saw a door.

“Could those sounds have been beyond that door?” he asked, flashing the candlelight upon it.

“Like’s not,” said Klamath John. “It shows, anyway, that there’s a room beyond this. I’m guessin’ that room is a prison, where the girl is held.”

Flynn stared at him. “Begorra, if yez aire wan av Red Reynard’s min,” he remarked, “ye’d ought to know what’s behind that dure!”

“One of Red Reynard’s men?”

“That’s what I’m sayin’! If ye’re wan av thim, ye ought to know this place. Ar-re yez playin’ a game wid us ag’in? It’s me that will cr-rack yer nick, av yer ar-re!”

“I’m playing no game!”

“No? Thin, be all the powers, what did yez mane by wearin’ thim whiskers and that wig? And why did yez thry to sind us to death in that river, afther preparin’ to save yersilf by jumpin’ f’r that rope? Thim questions have been ’atin’ into me, an’ the answers to thim would be roight welcome.”

“I can explain all that, I——”

“Don’t speak so loud,” the scout ordered. “Cudjo, come on here and hold this candle. I heard a sound there again. Flynn, back there I saw a miner’s pick or two. Will you get them and bring them?”

The scout moved forward, climbing over the rocks till he reached the door. Cudjo followed him and took the candle, while Buffalo Bill bent over by the door and put his eye to the keyhole.

As he did so, he became aware of the fact that beyond this door was a lighted room. Footsteps were heard in it, and, as he listened, with ear against the keyhole, he thought he heard a groan.

“Some one is in there!” he said.

Flynn and Klamath John came over the slippery rocks, armed with picks they had found in the stores, and Flynn had also a huge hammer.

“Whurroo!” he whispered. “We can bate the dure down with these things.”

“Sh!” warned the scout. Then, all listening, they heard a groan.

Following this groan, came the sound of an opening door, and footsteps. Then Red Reynard’s voice reached them.

“Git up!” he commanded harshly. “I don’t stand no more of this pretendin’. There’s nothing the matter with you but stubbornness, and I can cure that with a cowhide.”

Klamath John pushed close up to the scout.

“That’s Red Reynard,” he whispered.

In intense excitement they listened.

“Git up, I say!” they heard Red Reynard command. Then there was a sound as if he had seized and was dragging some one; and this was followed by a scream, which seemed near now coming through that keyhole.

“In the name of Heaven, can’t we do something?” whispered Klamath John.

Buffalo Bill began to apply his keys to the keyhole, working quickly. One of them stuck, and when he tried to get it out, he twisted it, and it remained fixed, so that he could not move it.

The woman screamed again, this time as if she were being murdered.

This was too much for even the calm nerves of Buffalo Bill. He caught the big hammer from the hand of the Irishman and swung it against the door, which shook under the terrific blow.

A curse was heard, and the screams of the girl increased.

“Stand guard there, you fellows, with your revolvers, while I smash in this door!” the scout ordered. “We’ll fight these devils to the death, if we have to.”

Cudjo was nothing loath to get back from that door, which was too near the water to suit him. So he set down the candle and retreated. When he had clambered to the top of the slippery rocks, he drew his revolver and stood guard, his eyes wandering round into the darkness beyond the candlelight.

“If we ain’t all killed in heah, it will be a wonder!” he declared.

The hammering blows of the scout were making the room resound, and the door trembled and creaked. Cudjo suddenly uttered a little screech of fear.

“What’s the matther wid yez?” Flynn demanded angrily.

“Marse Flynn, dat candle is walkin’ off all by itself!” Cudjo chattered. “See it dar!”

Flynn looked at the candle, and uttered a cry of amazement. “By all the saints, the nagur’s right, or I’m dr’amin’.” He went climbing across the slippery rocks toward the candle, as Buffalo Bill swung the hammer again and brought it down against the door.

Cudjo was in a panic, but still he poked up his head, to see what was happening to the candle.

“One o’ dem ’gators!” he shouted.

“Yis, but ’tis a little wan. Ye crazy nagur, ye set the candle down on the crather’s back!”

A small saurian, no more than a foot or two long, had been lying close by the water, and the darky had taken it for a rock. In his haste to get away from the water, he had stuck the candle down on the creature’s back. It had been too sluggish to move until the melted tallow ran down, burning it into activity.

“A movin’ candleshtick!” said Flynn humorously. “Cudjo, yez ought to git a patent on it. ’Twould pay ye big.”

He stretched out his hand to take the candle from the back of the saurian, but he failed, for with a motion so quick that it surprised him the lizardlike creature slipped into a hole in the wall, taking the candle with it.

“Begorra, did ye say that?” said Flynn, in astonishment. “It’s goin’ to light up the rats, and the other crathers that delight in darkness.”

The candlelight went glimmering into the hole where the saurian was disappearing, and the room began to grow dark. Buffalo Bill stopped swinging the hammer.

“Get another candle!” he ordered, and Klamath John, nearest to them, hurried to get candles.

On the top of the slippery rocks Cudjo was muttering like one demented.

“De big ’gator will come tuh find what’s ’come o’ de little one,” he said. “Marse Cody, we’d better git out ob heah befor’ it does!”

He began to slide down from the rocks, getting as far from the water as he could.

“Lave me have a whack at the dure wid the hammer!” Flynn requested, when candles had been lighted.

A shot sounded, and they knew it was fired at the door, but the bullet did not come through. The girl was now apparently trying to get out of the room where she was held, and Red Reynard had turned the revolver on the door which the scout was battering.

Klamath John, at this juncture discovered that the door by which he and the scout’s party had come in had been opened, and that men were hurrying in through it. He announced his discovery, and began to shoot at the men he saw there.

“Put out the candles!” shouted Buffalo Bill.

Flynn gave them a kick that hurled them into the water, plunging the room in darkness.

Buffalo Bill still swung the hammer, the girl was screaming now as if attacked with hysteria, and the men who had entered the room where the scout and his companions were opened with their revolvers.

“Bedad, but it’s gittin’ war-rm in here!” said Flynn, as he dropped behind the rocks and answered the pistol fire of the men.

Klamath John yelled defiantly at the desperadoes, and worked his revolvers as fast as he could.

Buffalo Bill discovered the door was yielding to his persistent hammering. Splinters began to fly from it, and soon a blow sent the head of the hammer through the wood.

But more men had come to the help of Red Reynard in that room, and more men were crowding into the room where stood the gallant scout and his companions.

Flynn continued to shoot from behind the slimy rocks, but Klamath John stood forth boldly, as if he defied death.

The head of the scout’s hammer again sank through the door. Another blow broke a hinge, and the door swung sideways, revealing the lighted room behind.

Red Reynard was there, and now, with a snapshot at the scout, he commanded his men to take him.

The girl, who had apparently been in hysteria, sprang from a corner, and, clutching Red Reynard, tried to stop him, thus throwing him to the floor.

Klamath John, reckless to the last, fell from the top of the rocks, with a bullet through his body, but continued to work his pistols.

“Whurroo!” Flynn howled, in wild excitement. “We’re at the ind, Cody, but we’ll go down like min.” He fired again at the men who were running across the room. “Wan for ye, ye divils!”

Buffalo Bill sprang through the broken door and dashed toward Red Reynard, seemingly as reckless as Klamath John himself. But he did not reach Red Reynard, nor did that doughty desperado gain the side of the scout.

A tremendous explosion sounded.

When the scout picked himself up, after the explosion, which had hurled him heavily against the wall, he found that he was alone, except for Michael Flynn. The girl lay on the floor, some distance away. At the farther end of the room a fire was raging, and its light revealed all round him broken and jagged walls.

“’Twas the alligator, I’m thinkin’, which carried aff the candle, that done it,” said Flynn. “’Twas an ixplosion of gunpowder, d’ye mind. It tore the very divil out av this room, and knocked me into the middle of nixt wake. But I’m shtill livin’.”

“Marse Cody, I’se livin’, too!” Cudjo came crawling through the shattered door and over the fallen rocks. “I was hidin’ in a hole dar when de shootin’ was goin’ on, and when dat upsplosion done come, de rocks des kivered me as dey fell. But I’se still livin’, Marse Cody.”

Klamath John was found in a dying condition.

“I’d like to explain to you,” he whispered. “I was honest in all them things. I did find the letter and the stick pins, and I was only scared when I jumped out of the canoe and grabbed that rope. I don’t know who put the rope there, but I s’pose it was Red Reynard’s men.”

“But what made yez so mysterious about it?” asked Flynn. “Why wouldn’t yez come to Cody’s hotel? And why did yez wear the false whiskers and the like?”

“I was practicing,” was the unexpected answer.

“Practicing?”

“Yes, practicing for detective work. I wanted to be a detective. So I thought I’d try to fool you—fool Cody, I mean—and I thought if I could, I could fool anybody. That’s why I disguised myself. And I didn’t want to come into the town, because it would increase the danger of recognition.”

“Cody, what do yez think av that?” the Irishman asked presently. “Did yez iver hear annything like it?”

“I never did,” was the scout’s answer.

“But he was an honist man,” said Flynn. “Klamath John was honist.”

“Perfectly honest, and perfectly foolish in doing what he did.”

Red Reynard, Bat Stevens, and others of the leaders of the desperadoes were killed by the explosion and by the falling stones. The others, who lingered around and were seen by the scout the next day, were scattered by him and Flynn. One of them was captured, and he was forced to show the scout and his party the way out of the Cup. It was a hole in the eastern wall, hidden by vines, which the desperadoes had found after they had by chance gained the Cup’s interior by way of the river.

When the scout and his companions went out through this hole, they took the gold abandoned by the desperadoes, and they took, also, the young woman, whom they restored to her father, presenting her at the same time a considerable quantity of the gold.

“And it was an iligant advinture!” said Flynn. “It would be har-rd to bate it!”

“You’d never git dis chile in dar ag’in,” said Cudjo.

“Because of the alligators? ’Twas wan av thim that saved us, whin he carried aff the candle and set fire to the powder magazine. They’re gr-reat crathers. Av that wan wasn’t kilt, I’d like him for a pet, begorra!”

“You can hab him, Marse Flynn,” said Cudjo, his eyes big and round. “Dem fings is called caymen by de folks heah, but dey’s sho’ nuffin’ but jes’ common alligators. And ’gators does lub de flesh ob de nigger. You cain’ never git dis chile in dar ag’in, not if dar was bags o’ gol’ in dar so heavy I couldn’t tote um.”

“Ah, but it was the iligant advinture!” said Flynn. “I wish I could have another wan like it.”

“I think I should enjoy an experience like that again, myself,” said the scout. “Perhaps we shall share in further adventures, you and I. What do you think, Mike?”

“Begorra, I’m game!” quoth Michael Flynn.

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