CHAPTER XXVIII.
BARLOW AND THE GIRL.
While Buffalo Bill was thus riding toward the rendezvous to meet Ben Stevens, and the Cheyennes were riding hard toward the Southwest with Wild Bill in their midst as a prisoner, the dastardly young lieutenant, Joel Barlow, and the girl he had abducted so boldly from Fort Cimarron, were pursuing their separate ways.
May Arlington recovered from her swooning condition after Barlow had gone some distance, and she began to ask questions, which were rather hazy at first, but became sharp and pointed when she more clearly understood just where she was and recalled what had happened.
Barlow was lying like Ananias, in order to deceive her and make her think his motives honorable.
“It’s on account of the Cheyennes,” he said.
At the same time, so far as he was concerned, this was a bare falsehood, for he did not then know that the young bucks had left the reservation and gone on the warpath.
A horrible fear gripped the heart of the girl, at that mention of Cheyennes; yet she was of the courageous border kind, and soon she was again asking questions and demanding answers.
“If the Cheyennes are out, then the fort would be the safest place for me,” she urged.
“That’s because you don’t understand the situation,” he told her. “I understand it thoroughly. The fort can’t be held against them. It’s nothing but an old hulk, and has been so for a long time. The palisades are rotten and are ready to fall down. The Indians can beat them down without trouble.”
“If that is so, why haven’t you and the other troopers done something to repair the palisades?”