CHAPTER II.
FOUL PLAY.
The reader, perhaps, will have recognized the baron from the description of him already given, and will know at once that he told Frieda the truth when he said he was a pard of Buffalo Bill’s.
The baron had been sojourning at Yuma—not in the penitentiary, as Bernritter insinuated—but in one of the town’s best hotels.
He had received a telegram saying that the scout would be in Phœnix at a certain time, and he had started for Phœnix. After several days of leisurely travel, halting betimes at ranches and settlements, Fate directed the German to the Three-ply Mine.
It was the baron’s intention to halt at the Three-ply merely long enough to water his horse and himself, and inquire his most direct road to his destination. But Frieda came out to give him his directions, and the baron’s heart began to pound like a trip-hammer.
Instead of asking which way he ought to go, the baron inquired if he could stay in the camp for a day or two, paying good money for his accommodation. Frau Schlagel, Frieda’s mother, kept all such money as her own perquisite, and the doughty baron was made welcome.
He stayed four days, and hung about the chuck-shanty nearly the entire time.
The baron wanted Frieda to become Mrs. Von Schnitzenhauser. Frieda declined the honor, but she did it in such a way as to give the baron grounds for hope.
At any rate, the baron went off whistling “Die Wacht am Rhein,” and so pleased was he with himself, and so wrapped up in his future prospects, that he did not notice the unusual sagging of one of his saddle-bags.
The baron rode slowly. He wanted to commune with himself, and a slow pace made it easier—likewise it made it easier for McGowan, Bernritter, and Jacobs to catch up with him.