But that mention of the emeralds was a bait for the men, and they moved forward with him, making a clever sneak upon the trapper and the girl.
Nomad was talking in a fatherly way with Lena Forest, telling her that she was foolish in insisting on staying with Buffalo Bill, when all she could do was to hamper him.
“Ye see, I’m older’n he is,” he was saying, “and so I’ve got past ther p’int where I’m skeered ter say my say ter a woman because her face is purty. ‘Purty is as purty does’ ter me now; though onct there war a time when ther sight of a flutterin’ dress would set my heart ter knockin’, and I wouldn’t had any more sense than a two-year-old. Them times is gone by; I’m old, and I’m thet humly that I’m ashamed ter look in a lookin’-glass, and I know it. So I kin afford ter speak plain ter ye. You’re makin’ things hard fer Buffler by insistin’ on stayin’ with him. ’Tain’t no proper place for a woman, and——”
“But how can I leave Bruce and——”
“Thar ye go; thar ye go! When a gal gits in love she loses her sense. And that’s what ails ye. I don’t object ter ye thinkin’ proper good and strong of ther man ye expect ter marry; but at ther same time, hoss sense is hoss sense, and not somethin’ diff’runt. I say thet you ought to go to ther town, and thet yer ought ter have gone when Pawnee Bill went. And I say, furder——”
He was not given an opportunity to say anything further. Old Nebuchadnezzar, his homely, shaggy-headed horse, thrust out his nose, scented into the bushes, and then gave a jump and a squeal.
It was a warning; old Nebby was a veritable watchdog. But the warning came too late.
Before Nomad could seize his rifle, three men burst through the bushes, and each covered him with a revolver. They were Black John and two of his men, and two more came in sight a minute later.
“Surrender!”
Nomad was almost too chagrined for words. He knew that he was to blame for permitting these men to sneak on him undiscovered in that way, and hold him up at the point of the revolver.