“I knowed at once that would queer your little game, Pan—I mean Buffalo Bill”—he dodged as if he expected a bullet—“and so as soon as ther thing had been done I hiked out here ter tell ye about it and give ye warnin’.”
“Yes, I see.”
“We’re goin’ ter hang the real Buffalo Bill soon’s he strikes ther town. Rainey and me got up ther scheme, and it’s a handsome one, if I do say it; and it will put William F. Cody nicely under the daisies.”
“Yes, I see.”
“And when he’s out o’ ther way, there won’t be so durned much danger fer fellers like you and me what has ter make our livin’ by workin’ ther public in one way and another. But, of course, ther vigilantes, except two or three more in addition ter me and Rainey, don’t understand that, and we don’t want ’em to; they don’t know nothin’ about there bein’ two Buffalo Bills. And so we’ll bag him as soon as he hits ther town. And then he dances hornpipes on the thin atmosphere, and it’s all over with him, and we gits peace out here fer a while fer men of our stripe. I calls it a handsome plan, and so does Rainey. And so does Poker Dan, the gambler. We three really ’riginated and developed the scheme, and it’s a dandy. We didn’t want you to walk into the trap, and maybe have ther vigilantes hang you; and so, as I said, I rid fer this p’int, with this here warning.”
“I thank you for that, anyway, Slocum. When will Buffalo Bill be here?”
“That’s what we don’t know,” said Slocum, observing that Panther Pete’s followers pressed forward to hear what he said.
“I knew he’d come sooner or later, Bug-eye; this business was sure to reach him. And I wanted it to.”
Slocum stared.
“For, you see,” Panther Pete went on, “it’s a little game I’ve been playing here myself, to git him hung. He put me in jail once, a year ago, and I ain’t forgot it. When I broke out o’ that jail, I left behind me a little note fer him, tellin’ him that we’d meet again in the sweet by and by, and I would settle accounts with him. Then I planned to play this trick. I thought it would ruin him in reputation, maybe; and, at any rate, that when he did arrive here a mob would get him, fer the crimes I’d been doing.”