“Well, then, come with me.”
Turning to the Indians, he addressed some words to them in their native tongue,—it sounded like gibberish to me,—and started at once into the woods, while I picked up my saddle and bridle and followed behind him.
CHAPTER XVII.
MY FRIEND THE OUTLAW.
“Well, this bangs me completely,” thought I, as I shouldered my bundle and stumbled along behind my leader through the darkness. “But I would like to know if any white man has ever been captured before by hostile Indians and treated in this way. Coyote Bill seems to have the power in his own hands, doesn’t he? I tell you, he is a power in this land, and if he will let me get away from him this time, he’ll never see me again. I’ll go for the States the very first chance I get.”
Bill seemed to know just how fast I could go to keep up with him, and in a few minutes I saw a light shining through between the trees, and presently I was ushered into his camp. There were three or four men lying around the fire, and they started up and looked at us.
“We have caught the wrong boy,” said Bill, waving his hand to show that I could put my saddle and bridle down where I pleased; “but he has got to show us the place where that money is hidden before he gets away. He hasn’t had anything to eat, and is hungry.”
I sat down and looked at the men, and, I tell you, some of them were pretty rough characters. I was glad indeed that I had fallen into the power of Bill’s best looking man, for if I had been captured by any one of the men sitting there at the fire, I should have fared badly. They expressed a sentiment of strong disgust when Bill spoke of having captured the wrong boy, but no attention was paid to it. He proceeded to fill a long pipe very carefully, after which he went off into the darkness, while another man set before me some bacon and corn bread. It was not enough to satisfy my appetite, but I was glad to get what there was, and in a short time it had all disappeared. Then I filled my pipe and settled back for a smoke.
“Where do you suppose Bill is gone?” I asked, addressing my enquiries to whoever had a mind to answer it.
Henderson was there, and in forming this question I looked particularly hard at him, not because I wished him to reply to it, but because I wished to see how he took matters. He was as mad as he was in camp when Mr. Chisholm found that he had got hold of the pocket-book containing the receipts, and not hold of the one that contained the will.