It was the wont of that paleface, who felt pressed upon by the need of a Cheyenne scalp or pony or both, to lie in hopeful ambush on the wooded knoll. He would not grow weary with much watching; his reward was sure to appear within the hour, in the shape of a drunken Cheyenne, reeling in his saddle with the robe-bought hospitality of Sun City fifteen miles away. The sullen Sharp’s would speak, and the bibulous Cheyenne go headlong. Then the paleface who had sniped him would mount his own pony with speed, and round up the riderless pony of that Cheyenne who had been. Once the Cheyenne’s pony was secured, the paleface would scalp and strip his victim; then, using his lariat, he would drag what he didn’t want to the precipice adverted to, and toss it over.
Full two hundred leading citizens of Bear Shield’s village had been blotted out, before the Cheyennes became aware of their fate and the grim manner of it; for the paleface never exposed his ambush by letting any Cheyenne get away. If the census of the Cheyenne party exceeded the count of rifles on the knoll, they were permitted to ride by in innocent drunkenness, unconscious of the death they had grazed. As for what dead Cheyennes went over the cliff, certain coyotes and ravens, educated of a prevailing plenty to haunt the spot, would in an hour remove the last trace of their taking off. Full two hundred Cheyennes, the flower of Bear Shield’s band, were sent to the happy hunting grounds, at the base of the wooded knoll on Medicine Lodge Creek, before their wondering relatives solved the puzzle of their disappearance. Once the gruesome riddle was read, the Cheyennes as a nation painted for war. It was then that Bear Shield drove North like a storm, leaving Sun City a memory, and killing out the last injurious paleface for forty miles around. That, however, is to one side of our narrative, which has to do with Cimarron Bill, about to re-establish himself as a mounted and therefore reputable member of society.
Mr. Masterson sought to dissuade Cimarron Bill from his enterprise. It was not that he objected to the other’s vigorous scheme of gaining a remount; he wasn’t so tenderly given towards Cheyennes as all that. The government, in favor of appearances, might pretend to preserve the Cheyenne; but Mr. Masterson knew that in reality no close season for Cheyennes existed more than it did for gray wolves. But the wooded knoll on Medicine Lodge Creek was distant; to go and come meant days; the profit, one pony, was slight for so much effort and time and travel. Mr. Masterson, in comparison with the investment, pointed out the meagre sort of the reward. Also he offered to give Cimarron Bill a pony.
Mr. Masterson’s arguments availed nothing; Cimarron Bill was in that temper of diligent virtue, common with folk who have just finished a season of idleness and wicked revelry. He declined Mr. Masterson’s pony; he would win a pony for himself.
“No se’f-respectin’ gent,” observed Cimarron Bill, “can accept gifts from another gent. As you sow so shall you reap; havin’ recklessly lost my pony, I must now win out another by froogality an’ honest industry. Besides it ain’t jest the pony; thar’s the skelp—worth twenty-five dollars, it is, at the Dodge Bank. That’s a bet you overlooks. With that pony, an’ them twenty-five dollars for the skelp, I can begin life anoo.”
“Then,” returned Mr. Masterson, disgustedly, “if you’re going to play the fool, and waste five days and ride seventy-five miles and back to get a thirty-dollar pony and a twenty-five-dollar scalp, I might as well be a fool mate to you, and go along.”
“No, you stay here,” expostulated Cimarron Bill. “I might get downed; in which event it’ll be for you to look after Aunt Nettie.”
Cimarron Bill, despite his restless ways and careless want of forethought, always provided for Aunt Nettie. This was no work of difficulty; Aunt Nettie’s needs were neither numerous nor expensive, and, since a gentleman of the lively accuracy of Cimarron Bill could in the season kill and cure for his share fifty dollars’ worth of buffalo robes a day, they were readily overcome.
“One hundred shots,” Cimarron Bill was wont to say, “from my old eight-squar’, an’ Aunt Nettie is fixed for one plumb year.”
Mr. Masterson was about to remonstrate against remaining in Dodge, but Cimarron Bill interrupted.