“I wanted to bring you round to that,” the scout confessed, “so that perhaps you would agree with my ideas on the subject. My suggestion is that we empty out this whisky and fill the bottles with water from the stream over there; then restore them to the cache!”
“Waugh!” Nomad blurted, but not in approval.
“Throw away all this good and vallyble whisky?” cried Betts.
“It isn’t ours to sell in the first place,” argued the scout; “but if we can accomplish something we will take it anyway, and drain it out into the sand. Considering the use it is being put to, we have ample justification.”
“But——” began Betts.
“You have already admitted that if we cache the stuff somewhere else the Utes may get it. If we turn it into the sand they can’t. That’s a point to be considered. But the chief thing—the chief object to be gained—is that it will anger the Utes against Benson, if he brings them here, or sends them here, and they find that the whisky bottles hold nothing but water. If he angers them, his influence over them is lost; particularly we can count on that, when the influence of the whisky they have had has died out.”
Wild Bill put out his hand impulsively.
“Buffalo Bill forever!” he said. “I was willing to agree with Bill Betts and Nomad, that it would be a wicked waste to turn all this whisky out; but you’re right about it. We might not be here when Benson comes for the stuff, which he will do sooner or later; and if he comes with a lot of Utes we sure couldn’t grip him, even if we were here. But if he brought ’em, and then they got their mad up because the whisky was gone and the bottles filled with water, Mr. Benson would sure be, right off, in the hottest kind of trouble.”
Buffalo Bill further elaborated his idea, but the gist of what was said has already been given.