“Now, look here, Price. I believe you are determined to wreck the whole business. You speak of putting Buffalo Bill out of the way as if it were as easy as the killing of a yellow dog. Why don’t you let up and keep quiet while he is in this part of the country, instead of getting in deeper by trying to beat a better man than you at his own game?”
“Well, Sawyer, I like your nerve. You talk to me as if I was a boy of about fifteen. Do you suppose I am playing any ordinary hand of cards against Cody? If you do you are mistaken; but I said he is soon to drop out of the counting, and he is.”
“Very well, Price; when I get back at the capital, I’ll tell them where you went to.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that when you spring your trap you will find you are the one who is in it, and Buffalo Bill will be looking for other easy game.”
In his zeal to learn all with reference to Pa-e-has-ka, Little Cayuse had climbed up the tree and out upon another limb, intending to quietly reach the roof and hunt for some means of entering the cabin. As it happened, however, the branch slipped from under him, and he dropped upon the roof with a thud, crashing through the flimsy covering and landing on a few loose boards that separated the loft from the lower room in which the men were seated.
There was no escape. He was in plain view of the heavily armed men below, and surrender was the only course open. In five minutes Cayuse was a prisoner and under guard by the demand of Sawyer, who countermanded Price’s order that the Piute be shot at once. Price told Sawyer that Cayuse was a trailer for Buffalo Bill and already knew too much, but the man from Washington, in spite of his dishonest calling, realized that the very violence of the methods of the “ring” would prove to be its own executioner. There were far too many such men as Price and his followers.