“So you are Buffalo Bill, is yer?” asked Jim Sims.
“Yes; anything else I can do for you?” The scout naturally felt elated over his successful capture without firing a shot or having taken a life.
“No, cuss yer, yer hev done too much.”
“We’ll take the gags out of the fellows’ mouths now, as we have these two secure,” and, going over to the bunks, the two gags were removed, water was handed the men, and the four were at liberty to talk together, as soon as all four were secured in bunks for the night.
Then Buffalo Bill and the negro went to care for the horses, and a good grass plot was found down the cañon, where the animals were staked out.
The two packsaddles were well filled with supplies, and two of the other horses had bridles and saddles on them for the use of the men who were to ride them back to civilization when the gold boomers returned with their riches.
From the conversation of the four, Buffalo Bill soon gleamed that the two had had a hard time of it going through on foot, but had reached Helena at last, and, after a long rest, had bought horses and supplies, and, watching their chance, had started back again for the Big Horn Basin for their pards, and cheered by the riches they would become possessors of and going to bring back with them to civilization.
The firelight showed Buffalo Bill that the two men had hard faces, about on a par with his first two prisoners, and he knew that it would not do to leave them alone, bound as they were, with Black Bill, until the negro felt wholly himself again, and so he said:
“Now, we will turn in, Black Bill, and get a good night’s rest, and to-morrow I’ll go after the boys and bring them over here, for this seems to be about the end of our trail.”