Chapter VIII: The Prisoner

Throughout the remainder of the day the scout and his companions kept close under cover of the bushes of the island. They needed rest and sleep, and were not yet ready for any decisive movement.

Shortly before sunset, while Buffalo Bill was lying down and Flynn was dozing, Cudjo uttered a cry which brought the two white men to their feet.

They saw Cudjo floundering at the edge of the water, as if he had stepped off and gone beyond his depth, but as they ran to aid him they noticed the scaly back of an “alligator” rising slowly to the surface. The back was of a brownish mud color and seemed to be plastered over with river slime. The next moment the huge head rose in sight, the piggish eyes could be seen, and then the huge mouth came into view. Within the jaws of the loathsome creature was a piece of Cudjo’s coat. Cudjo gave another flounce and splash, like a speared fish, and the piece of coat, tearing loose, was left in the mouth of the saurian.

Buffalo Bill seized Cudjo’s hand and helped him to land, and the saurian disappeared with a slow and sullen movement. Cudjo fell on the shore under the bushes in almost a fainting condition.

“Marse Cody,” he said, “I is a dead man! Dat gator bit me, and I know I’se pizened. I sho is. I can feel de pizen wukkin’ through my ligerments.”

He would not believe otherwise until Buffalo Bill had shown him that he had not even been touched by the teeth of the creature.

“It caught your coat in its mouth, but its teeth never so much as touched you!” the scout assured him.

Thereupon Cudjo sat up. His black face had changed to an ashen brown, and he was trembling.

“A ’gator is monst’ous fond ob de meat of a nigger,” he said. “I has heah’d dat always, and now I knows it; and it’s only by de grace o’ Gawd dat I’se heah now, ’stead ob in dat ’gator’s stummick. Marse Cody, it was dis heah way: I was watchin’ de sho’ over yondeh, as yo’ done tole me to, and I was watchin’ de river fuh de ’gator. But I didn’t see ’im. My back was to’a’ds de way we come f’um, and I was lookin’ down de river to’a’ds dem cabins, lack you said. While I was doin’ dat dis ’gator riz right beside me, an’ I didn’t know he was widin a mile twell he had me. Den I yelled. Marse Cody, you’d ’a’ yelled, too. You would ’a’ been ’bleeged tuh yell. I ’spect I was head’d at dem cabins, but I can’t help it, nohow.”

Mickey Flynn had watched the river while Buffalo Bill made his examination of the negro, and now Flynn spoke:

“Cody, there’s a man on t’other shore, right acrass fr’m this island, and he’s lukin’ at it. I’m bel’avin’ he heard the nagur whin he let out that screech.”

“Who’s a nigger?” said Cudjo, bristling with indignation, in spite of his scare; for, though Cudjo would call himself a “nigger,” he objected to any one else doing it.

Buffalo Bill left Cudjo’s side and slipped to the point where the Irishman was watching.

The man seen by Flynn stood on the other shore, just abreast of the island, and stared across the water. He wore rough boots and a red-flannel shirt, and he carried a pick, while at his hip swung a revolver. In addition, he had long hair and a heavy red beard. After staring a while at the island, he went on downstream, but soon he was seen again, this time in a shallow boat, which he had drawn from under the bank.

“He’s comin’ acrass!” said Flynn. “He shure heard the screech av the nagur, and now we’re in f’r it. I’ll cr-rack the head av him whin he makes his landin’. It’s a swate headache he’ll be havin’, if he comes in close by me.”

He picked from the ground a broken bough that would serve well as a club.

“It’s breakin’ heads reminds me of the dear ould dart,” he said grimly. “It would be Donnybrook Fair, if there was enough av thim. Whurroo! He’s comin’ sthraight f’r this p’int.”

Buffalo Bill stepped back and drew his revolver, though he had no intention of using it except as a club. As a second and better thought, he went to the heaped-up articles taken from the canoe and selected a rope, which he looped and put in shape for a lasso cast.

The man held his way steadily across to the island, but when he approached it he stopped the canoe, and, sitting quietly in it, looked through the bushes as well as he could. When he saw and heard nothing, he dipped his paddle again and came on. He drove the nose of his boat into the reeds that grew by the water’s edge, and stepped out.

Mickey Flynn rose from behind a bush and brought his club down on the man’s head with such force that the fellow pitched forward on his face without a sound.

“Whurroo!” said Flynn, dashing on him. “It’s a nate way to do a job av that kind, betther than a knife or a pistol. He’ll be comin’ r-round in a minute, but we can have him fast enough befure he does.”

With the rope which he had meant to use as a lasso, Buffalo Bill tied the hands and feet of the unconscious man.

When, five minutes later, the fellow recovered enough to talk, he looked with quailing eyes into the faces of his captors.

“Do you belong down there?” said the scout, nodding in the direction of the cabins. “We know you do, of course. Answer our questions straight, and we won’t be hard on you.”

“Why did yez come acrass?” queried Flynn.

“You laid a trap for me,” said the man, looking at Flynn. “I ought to ’a’ knowed it was a trap, but I didn’t believe that any men could be over here, not of our crowd. How you got in here I don’t know. That bellow one of you let out didn’t sound like anything human, and that helped to fool me; I thought it must be some kind of a beast.”

“Baste! It was near to bein’ a baste, for it was a nagur.”

“Mister Flynn, will yo’ quit callin’ me a nigger?” Cudjo protested. “I ain’t no nigger, I’se a gem’man ob color, and I’se been a car po’ter, suh. I ain’t a nigger no mo’ dan you is, I’d hab you comperhend.”

The prisoner turned his staring eyes on Cudjo.

“Did you ever see one of these?” asked Buffalo Bill, holding before him one of the stick pins showing a skull and crossbones.

The prisoner stared at it with unwinking eyes, but it was clear he was astonished.

“I’ve seen something like it,” he admitted slowly.

“There is something like it on the door of the cabin which can be seen from here!”

“Yes.”

“About two years ago a band of masked bandits attacked and robbed a train on the Cedar Mountain Railroad. They wore stick pins like this. Were you with that crowd?”

The prisoner hesitated. “What are you drivin’ at?” he said. “I dunno what you’re talkin’ about.”

“The leader of that band was Red Reynard, the Fox, and Red Reynard is in command of the men in the cabins down there. Am I right in that?”

“In the fiend’s name, who are you?” said the man, as he lifted himself on his elbow and stared hard.

“You are Buffalo Bill!” he added, with sudden comprehension.

“I admit it.”

“And you’ve follered Red Reynard? This will be a surprise to the boys.”

“Then Red Reynard is down there?”

“So long’s you know all about it, what’s the use of denyin’ it?”

“He came here through the cañon of the Lost River, by way of the tunnel through the cliffs; and he’s found gold in the sand of the stream. You’re taking out a tremendous lot of it, and are sending it to Frisco by Poker Pete, and stacking it up in the banks there.”

The prisoner stared as if dazed; the knowledge possessed by Buffalo Bill struck him as something so uncommon and unaccountable that it was weird.

“Yes,” he admitted. “If you’ll loosen up these cords a bit I’ll tell everything I know, though I guess you don’t need me to. You must ’a’ got in here the same way we did.”

“Where is Klamath John now?” was Buffalo Bill’s next question, at which the prisoner’s eyes widened again.

“Klamath Jack, you mean?”

“Klamath Jack, or Klamath John, I suppose it’s all the same. Where is he?”

“I don’t know. He went to Frisco a couple of weeks ago, and ought to be back by now.”

“How did he get out of the Cup? There’s another way besides the river?”

“Yes, there’s another way.”

“Tell us about it.”

“You climb the cliffs with ropes.”

But a certain change in his manner made the scout sure he was lying.

“Tell me how Klamath John looks,” was the scout’s next demand.

“He is smooth-faced, but he disguised himself before he set out for Frisco.”

“We met the divil!” cried Flynn. “He wore a false beard and a wig.”

“Yes, that’s what he wore.”

“Did he intend to visit the town of Klamath?” said the scout.

“I understood so; he was to come back by there.”

“What else do you know about him?”

“Not much. He’s the lieutenant, and acts as chief here when the chief is gone.”

“And the chief is Red Reynard?”

“Yes.”

“How long have you fellows been here in the Cup?”

“The better part of a year.”

“And you’ve taken out a lot of gold in that time, and sent it to Frisco?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“You built the cabins?”

“Yes, we cut the logs above here and floated ’em down. ’Twasn’t any great job.”

“How long was it planned for your gang to stay in here?”

“As long as we liked; there wasn’t no time set. We was suited here; plenty of game in the Cup here, and fish in the river, and what extrys we needed could be brought from Frisco, or some place like it. We thought we’d hit it good here, and we didn’t care to get out in a hurry, ’specially as officers outside was lookin’ for some of us. We calc’lated to leave by and by, of course, to enjoy the gold we got here, but we wasn’t hurryin’ it. We was comfortable enough.”

His manner admitted that he believed the end of that pleasant dream had come.

---------------------------------------------------------