But his escape this time was out of the question. Poor Skibo dearly paid for his heroism by becoming the object of such hero worship, and cheers, and slaps, and handshakes that he heartily wished the ground would open and swallow him up.
And to cap the climax the bride came forward, and, after thanking him in sweetest way and words, and while tears chased each other down her cheeks, and admiring miners and cowboys stood with uncovered heads, she unfastened from her throat a massive gold brooch, and with her own hands pinned it to Skibo’s trembling shirt front—“to remind you,” she told him, “of one who will ever and often think gratefully of you.”
CHAPTER V.
HOW HICKOK CAME TO GRIEF.
Sleeping with his window wide open, as was his custom, “Wild Bill” Hickok, Buffalo Bill’s pard from Laramie, had been awakened by the shooting at the Red Tiger. His first thought was that his pards were in trouble, and, hastily donning his clothes and buckling on his belt, he did not pause to stumble along the corridors and through the crowd of inquisitive loungers, but sprang through the window and landed lightly on the soft earth twelve feet below.
As Hickok approached the Red Tiger, he could see the tall forms of the scout and of Skibo, and knew that they were all right. He would have entered, but, standing in the shadow of a building to reconnoitre, he saw something to change his plans.
Some one passed an open window with a lighted lamp, the rays of which fell upon two men conversing in whispers not twenty feet from him. Hickok recognized one of the men as the sheriff of the county, and the other, he felt quite sure, was the man who had been pointed out as the local Indian agent.
Wild Bill was curious to know what their private confab was about, for he had intuition that it concerned the arrival of Buffalo Bill and his pards.
Hickok glanced about him for means of getting closer to the pair. Near him was a door opening into the corner of the building which seemed to be some sort of a low warehouse,. He tried the door, and it opened readily at his touch; then he stepped inside and softly closed the door behind him. He felt like a burglar, and had no means of knowing what sort of a place it was, because it would not do to strike a match. The windows were uncurtained, and he had noticed that the two men stood close to one of them.