“I’m feeling jubilant, so far as I’m individually concerned,” Wild Bill admitted, “and you’ll agree that I’ve a reason; for a little while ago I was a bound prisoner of those red devils, and they were talking about the fun they were going to have in torturing me as soon as they joined their friends. And now I’m free, with you, old pard; and I’ve got a good revolver, and a good horse under me. If it was the proper thing, I think I could do a little yelling, just for purpose of celebrating the great event.”
But he did nothing of the kind.
Together they began to ride after the moving body of Cheyennes; and as they rode along, they kept a sharp lookout for Ben Stevens, and also for the girl, and Lieutenant Barlow.
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE THEFT OF THE NUGGETS.
When Lieutenant Barlow discovered that May Arlington was not with the Cheyennes, he dropped out of their midst and began a search for her.
On his part there was no superstitious belief that the spirits of the Moonlight Mountains had been concerned in that “attack” on the Indians. He knew he had heard the yelling of a white man.
Who that white man was he did not know, of course; but he suspected Buffalo Bill. As for Ben Stevens, Barlow thought Ben was in prison at Fort Cimarron.
He had all along believed that Buffalo Bill would lead a hot pursuit; and he had fancied, too, that the scout would have at his back a strong body of troopers. His experience as a soldier had taught him that the troopers would not delay in following the young bucks who had broken from their reservation. Hence, as he set out to look for the missing girl, he had in mind the possibility of meeting white men; and it was a possibility which was very disturbing, for he knew full well that if captured and taken a prisoner back to the fort he could expect little mercy there.
He had very definite ideas as to what he wished to do.
First, he must find the girl; for he wished to take her with him. Her beauty had inflamed his mind, and he intended to force her to become his wife, in some remote place to which he would flee when he had secured the store of gold which he sought. That was, after all, the chief end—the securing of that gold. With it, he would be independent. Without it, he feared he could do nothing, unless it were to live by his wits as a card sharper.