And he did go—taking Lige Benner’s five hundred dollars with him.
The morning gray was streaking the east when all this business was finished.
“Suppose we go to bed?” said the scout.
“Come out hyer fust, you men,” called a voice from the front of the hotel.
It was the clerk. He had accompanied Isaacs to the corral to make sure that he took his own horse, and he was now calling those in the office from the hitching pole.
Buffalo Bill, Wild Bill, and Jordan hurriedly answered the clerk’s summons. In the dim, ghostly light of coming day a weary horse could be seen with drooping head over the pole. A man was hanging to the saddle—bound to the horn and cantle by a rope. His arms hung limply, and his head was bowed over on the horse’s neck.
“Who is it?” demanded the scout.
“Pass the ante,” the clerk answered. “The hoss must hev come up hyer while I was at the c’ral. The man’s tied in the saddle. By jings, he’s shot an’ past talkin’! It’s—it’s one o’ Benner’s men. It’s Ace Hawkins.”
The sky pilot and Wild Bill both started hastily forward.