“I don’t reckon you could do it, pard,” Brown answered.
“Vale, ve dry idt, eenyhow. Uff der voundt tond’t pleed too much ve gan make idt. How many miles iss idt?”
“All of three, I reckon; and rough goin’.”
In spite of his unpromising physical appearance, the baron was strong; and he had the stuff of which heroes are made.
He accomplished the three miles over the rough trails with Brown on his shoulders, and got him into the local hospital in time to save his life.
The knowledge that the prospectors had been in charge of the treasure; that Austin was dead, Brown wounded, and the treasure gone, furnished news of a sufficiently exciting kind to fill all the public places of Blossom Range with crowds.
“A Dutchman’s luck!” was the universal verdict, when reference to the baron’s escape was made. “You can’t kill a Dutchman.”
Buffalo Bill talked the matter over with his pards, in the seclusion of his room at the Eagle House, while a delegation of the townspeople had gone out to Eagle Gap to bring in the body of the dead prospector, and poke round out there for whatever they could find of interest concerning the daring desperadoes who had made the attack.
“Thar is one shore thing,” said old Nomad, humped up in his chair and smoking his pipe; “ther chaps what made ther tackle had information o’ the hull bizness.”
“Unt der kvestion iss,” the baron added, “how didt dey knowed idt?”