Her voice was low, but her face flushed as if she had swallowed fiery liquor.
Snaky Pete saw her talking with the youth, and then saw her mount the horse which Pool surrendered to her.
“They’re ag’inst me!” he grumbled, under his breath. “They’ve planned to break up the band and git me captured. It’s revenge she’s after. Well, I’ll settle her; and I’ll settle him, and that old trapper, too! I see now why Pool wouldn’t shoot the old cuss; it was ’cause he’s in with him. He and she aire in with Buffalo Bill and the officers. Likely they’re to git a reward, if they land me. Well, I’ll settle ’em!”
He brooded over this, his anger mounting and his desire to “settle ’em” growing.
“Mebbe I can git out of her what the plans of Buffalo Bill aire; er mebbe I can git it out of Pool. I reckon that Cody will try to bring soldiers from Fort Thompson. There’s a nasty fight comin’, I can see. Well, I’m livin’ yit; and long’s I can straddle a horse and give orders, I’m worth a dozen men in a fight. And if Cody thinks we won’t fight he’ll know better when he tackles us.”
His thoughts took another turn:
“P’r’aps I might buy Cody to draw off the soldiers by sending him word that if he didn’t I’d kill Nomad. It might work, and might be advisable if we git in a tight hole.”
He was in a fretting and fuming mood when the Sepulcher Mountains were entered. His wound made him feverish, and that did not add to his good temper. He snapped and snarled at his men whenever they came to him for orders, and conducted himself altogether in a disagreeable way.
“He’s jes’ like a bear with a sore head,” said Pizen Jane, when she observed these things.
She had kept with the outlaw command, and Pool Clayton had done the same; both of them avoiding, as much as possible, personal contact with the irascible leader.