Without stopping to reflect, Buffalo Bill went into the hole. He did not strike any matches, but crept forward slowly and cautiously.
The way was not obstructed, and, after five minutes’ progress, he reached the mouth, which was screened by bushes.
Voices not far away made him pause.
“He’ll shore strike ther tunnel, an’ we’ll get him when he projecks his snoot outer ther mouth,” said Bat Wason.
“Then go at once and take a position so you can plug him when he appears,” was the reply of Black-face Ned.
Now it was that Buffalo Bill acted with celerity. He was out of the tunnel, and hidden behind a bowlder a few feet away from the brush when Bat Wason showed his face.
The diminutive outlaw squatted on the ground within a rod of the brush, his body concealed by a rock, and waited, revolver in lap, for the king of scouts to appear.
CHAPTER XIII.
A VENGEFUL INDIAN.
A line of brush extended from the mouth of the tunnel to the base of the mountain. The distance was about fifty feet, and in the brush somewhere Black-face Ned and his prisoners were concealed.
Were there three prisoners or two? Buffalo Bill believed that both Colonel Hayden and his daughter were with the leader of the outlaws, and he feared that Alkali Pete was also a prisoner. The lanky plainsman had not been killed, that was certain, for if he had been shot to death, his body would have been found either in the tunnel or the cellar of the castle.