Before he read a word he looked toward McGowan. The mine-owner, drooping limply in his chair, was shaking like a man in an ague fit.
“Why, McGowan,” cried the scout, “what ails you?”
“Nothing but—premonitions,” returned McGowan huskily, making an attempt to straighten up. “Go on, Buffalo Bill. Read that message. Something tells me that the lightning is going to strike.”
The scout read the message first to himself. It ran as follows:
“McGowan: Your daughter is in our hands, and we have a place where we can keep her safely, defying you and Buffalo Bill and his pards to find her. You will never see her again unless you give a written promise not to proceed against us on account of that attempted robbery, and unless you leave a five-pound bar of bullion at the mouth of the deserted shaft three miles north of the Three-ply, just off the Black Cañon trail. Both the written promise and the bullion to be left at the deserted shaft at midnight to-night. It is neck or nothing with us, and we mean business.
“Bascomb and Bernritter.”
Buffalo Bill was dumfounded by this message. The first question he asked himself was whether or not it might be a “bluff.” Then, when he recalled that McGowan’s daughter was long overdue from Phœnix, he knew that the fact pointed to the two white scoundrels successfully accomplishing the stroke mentioned in the note, viz.: the capture, in some way, of the person of Miss McGowan.
The scout hesitated to read the message to McGowan. Noting his hesitation, and auguring dire things from it, McGowan gave a wild cry and flung himself toward the scout.
“What is it?” he demanded; “tell me, quick! I can stand anything better than uncertainty.”