“It’ll take some time, I suppose, for some one of us will have to go for the money; but we’ll make you comfortable as long as you keep quiet and take things easy. We’ll have something to eat and drink soon, an’ then I’ll have to be going.
“If those friends of yours push on for a fight they’ll get it—an’ a great deal more than they’re looking for, too!”
“They’re fighting now, aren’t they?” asked Mainwaring. “I hear guns firing.”
“Maybe they’re wasting some powder. They couldn’t do anything with us here, not if they tried for six months. We’re walled in from the east, for I had it all fixed to tumble forty tons of rock down right on the trail. I meant to wait a little longer, so that the rock would fall on some of them, but the trap worked too easy.
“West from here there’s no opening that isn’t guarded, and only an eagle could get up the cliffs on that side. So you can make your mind easy about those friends of yours. You needn’t worry yourself with any hopes that they are going to save you.”
But Mainwaring could not make his mind easy. He loved Buffalo Bill as well as a brother, and he had been a good comrade with the rest of the border king’s party. And he feared now, seeing how strong the place was, that the knight of the plains and his fellow scouts would lose their lives in trying to rescue him.
Supper was now set out on a rough slab of stone for Mainwaring and Harkness, and a very good meal it was, too, considering the situation.
Mainwaring saw that there was a great deal of dried meat and some fresh game hanging up in the place, and he also noticed that there was forage for the horses stacked in the upper end of the cave, where they were tied, to the number of about two hundred.
There was no lack of water. It dripped in springs on every side, finding its way off in little trickling streams as bright as silver.
The bandit chief noticed how observantly Mainwaring took in the general features of the place, and he said sarcastically: