“If we aren’t mistaken, you’re pulling Benson along in your old hearse to-day,” the scout told him.
Elmore came near falling out of his seat.
“Bub-Benson! But—say, it cain’t be. Bub-Benson ain’t——”
Buffalo Bill advanced on the stage, a revolver in each hand, paying no further heed to the stage driver.
“We think you’re in there, Benson!” he called out. “So you might as well step right out and surrender. We know you’re a big little man, and a mighty good pistol shot; but there are four of us here, and we can do some shooting, too. So, even if you downed one or two of us you couldn’t get away. And it would go mighty hard with you. Better come right out like a little man and surrender.”
But there was no reply to this.
“Hold your revolvers on the stage doors,” the scout commanded. “If Benson jumps out and tries to get away, down him. He has given us enough trouble.”
He stepped to the door of the stage on his side, and boldly drew it open with his left hand, holding a revolver in his right.
“You might as well come out, Benson. There is a woman in there. Miss Vera Bright; but, of course, she knows that we mean no harm to her. We’re after Tim Benson.”
There was a rustling sound; then a woman—or what they took, in the rather dim light, to be a woman—came out of the stage, carrying a hand bag.