Buffalo Bill's Boy Bugler; Or, The Last of the Indian Ring

by Prentiss Ingraham

Price was not told that Little Cayuse had escaped. Two men remained at the hut, ostensibly to guard the prisoner, but in reality to blind the leader to the loss of the prisoner and firearms, while some of them attempted to recover the rifles and revolvers.

Price had immediately set about carrying out his plan to stock the abandoned mine with provision for a long siege. He was shrewd enough to see he was between two fires, and that when the pinch came he would receive no assistance from the Washington side of the ring. Neither could he take refuge among the Indians, for several of the tribes had learned to hate him, and he was safe only with some bands of renegades whom he had employed. A few tough characters, white and red, were still loyal to him, and with these well armed and gathered about him in the mountain stronghold he could defy the government and its officers.

The second night following the carousal at the hut Price had sent a dozen pack mules to the hills laden with supplies of various kinds. Six mounted men went with them, and were to return the following night for another load.

Price was carrying on his preparations with secrecy, in spite of the fact that he believed he had downed Buffalo Bill and his band. He wished to keep the fact that he was furnishing a rendezvous from as many of the people of the town as possible and its location from all except his own men.

But it so happened that Red Dick and half a dozen cowpunchers were coming to town that night for a round of sport. They met the small caravan and wondered what it could mean. They asked the men who were with the pack mules, but received such evasive replies that they determined to learn for themselves where this consignment was going.

Quietly following the trail by the occasional wheezy call of one of the mules, Red Dick and his men were not far behind when the caravan entered the trail that led to the old mine. There they dismounted, and tethered their horses, and followed on foot to the end of the trail.

Red Dick and his men were near enough to hear the challenge of the guard at the lower entrance to the mine, and watched the lanterns disappear down the incline.

Dick had recognized some of the men with the mules, and knew that they were in some way mixed up with Price, and it had been currently reported for a long time that Price was stealing the best of the Indian supplies. Red Dick figured it out that here was another batch of goods that belonged to the government. His narrow but active mind was in a whirl over the discovery. Here were goods that belonged to him as much as to Price. Price was stealing from both government and the Indians. He was hiding his plunder here, and “finding is keeping.”

Red Dick laid the case before his followers. They agreed with him in every particular, and would stand by him to a man.

Then Dick built a plot of his own to obtain possession of the loot. With his men he would hide in the hills and watch, and if all six of Price’s men came out again, after they had gone he would enter and take possession, without any difficulty, and what he and his men could carry away in one day would be worth many hundred dollars. If they did not all come out—well, he would go in, anyway, and once inside, if he had to fight to hold it, he would, for Price wouldn’t dare call on State or Federal officials for aid.