Coyote Bill touched his hat—I have thought more than once from the way he saluted that he had been in the army—and I rode off. Some things, which I had gone over so many times that I had them by heart, promptly came back to me. I wondered if any man who was captured by hostile Indians was ever treated that way before. What Coyote Bill saw about me; whether he thought there was something that reminded him of other and happier days, I don’t know. Anyhow, he had saved me from a horrible death, and for that I was grateful. I don’t believe there was another man in the world that could have done it. My horse neighed shrilly as he approached the house, but there was no one who came out to answer him. I kept on till I got to the porch, and there I found the door open and everything in the greatest confusion. The ranch looked almost as bad as it did when Tom Mason got through searching for the lost pocket-book, only the things were not all piled in the same place. I got off from my horse and went in. Bob Davenport’s pillow was on the floor, but the heavy bag of gold which he had left after paying off his men was gone. I looked in the place where my money was hidden and found that it was gone, too. Bob hadn’t left in such a hurry that he had forgotten to take his valuables with him. I knew that Coyote Bill was depending on something he never could find, but then I freely forgave him. It was a plan of his to aid me in my escape. When I had fully satisfied myself that the money had been taken, I went out on the porch and waved my hat to Bill, and then I went into the grove to look where Sam Noble had concealed his, but that also had been taken away. Poor Sam! He would never miss his money now. And I wondered what had become of the other two cowboys. I didn’t like to enquire about it.
“It is gone, is it?” exclaimed Bill, who at that moment came galloping up. “Well, we have had our trouble for our pains. How do things look in the house?”
“You can go in and see, but everything that will be of use to you has been removed,” said I. “Are you going to burn the house?”
“Burn it? What should I want to burn it for? I want Bob to come back here and live.”
“And you are mighty foolish for telling me of it,” said I to myself. “I will never let him stay in this house again. That’s one thing that I didn’t promise to keep to myself.”
Coyote Bill tossed his reins to his man and went in, but he did not spend much time in looking around. It was plain to him that no money could be concealed there, and finally he came out, took my rifle off his back and handed it to me.
“There you are,” said he, “and I want you to understand that the gun hasn’t been fired since you gave it up. There’s your revolvers. Now buckle them around your waist, so that I can see how you look.”
I wondered what Bill was thinking of when he did this, but I took the belt and put it around my waist where it belonged, and looked up for the man to tell what else he had on his mind.
“Now, Henderson, you’re even,” said Bill. “You said, if you had the power, you’d make him taste one of the bullets in your pistol. Now go ahead.”
I turned toward Henderson, and saw that his right hand was fumbling with the pistol in his holster. A minute more and he would have me covered with it. I looked toward Bill to see what he thought about it.