“That’s why!” he almost screamed. “He struck me—he knocked me down; he treated me as no man would treat a dog.”
“What was his reason for striking you? He must have thought he at least had a good reason? You had threatened to betray him?”
“His reason was that he caught me listening under the window at Mrs. McGee’s to some talk he was having with the girl; but he was mistaken in believing that I deliberately eavesdropped. I listened, but it was only by chance I knew he was talking there. And for that he struck me and abused me.”
“I suppose you know the result of this exposure of him?”
“As far as I am concerned? Yes, I know it will disgrace me. But I don’t care now. I’ve ruined myself with gambling. I expect to go down; and when I go down I’m going to pull him down with me.”
He turned toward the door.
“Think what you please of me, Cody,” he said. “It doesn’t matter now. You’re an upright man, and can’t understand these things probably; and I’m a wild and wrecked young fool on the borders of disgrace. But I swore I’d do him, and I’ve done it. The rest is for you. When you want me send for me; I’ll tell all I know, and I’ll then take my medicine. But he goes down with me, and that suits me.”
He flung himself out of the room in wild desperation, and went clattering down the stairs.
CHAPTER XXII.
OUTSIDE THE WALLS.
Lieutenant Joel Barlow had seen the entrance of Buffalo Bill into the barricaded land about the fort, and when the scout had gone on to his room at the colonel’s headquarters, Barlow had beheld Wilkins going in the same direction.