“Then your name isn’t Bob Davenport?”
I said it was not, but I didn’t tell him what my name was. I knew Bob very well, and had left him at the ranch that morning. I didn’t say, however, that he was making hurried preparations for flight, for I thought that was something the man could find out for himself. The man listened in amazement, and, when I got through, uttered a string of oaths.
“Set me down for a blockhead, and you’ll hit it,” he said, as soon as he could speak. “I might have known that you were not the fellow.”
“Did you calculate to capture Bob?” I enquired, and my astonishment and delight were so strong that it was all I could do to repress them. That is what I meant when I said that Henderson and Coyote Bill began persecuting Bob at once on account of his wealth, and did not intend to let up on him until he had been driven from the country. I saw through the whole scheme at once. They intended to keep Bob a prisoner among the Indians until he was ready to do just as they wanted him to do, and that would be to sign his property over to Henderson. It didn’t look to me as though that plan would work, but Henderson evidently knew some way to get around it.
“Why, of course I intended to capture Bob Davenport,” said the man, and it was plain enough to see that what I had said made him very angry. “What use are you to me? If I had known that you were not Bob I wouldn’t have taken you prisoner.”
“What would you have done to me?”
“You saw that man up there that was shot from his horse, didn’t you?” said he, in a very significant tone of voice. “Well, you would have been that way now. I could make mince-meat of you in two minutes!” he added fiercely. “There’s timber right ahead, and the redskins are just aching to get their hands on you. But then you are a brave boy; I will say that much for you. It isn’t everyone who would go on and talk so when he found himself a prisoner among hostile Indians. I’ll wait until I see what Coyote Bill will have to say about you.”
I tell you I was afraid of this, and my only hope of salvation lay with Coyote Bill. I rode along in silence after that and never had anything more to say. I knew what the man meant when he referred to the timber right ahead. All that was needed for him was to tell the Indians that his protection for me was withdrawn, and in two minutes I would have been stripped and staked out, and a fire burning at one of my feet. All that stood in his way of saying that was Coyote Bill.
“I do know something that I want to tell Bill,” I said.
“Very well, then keep it for him,” answered the man. “I don’t want to talk to you any more.”