There was a cot in the room, and Wild Bill flung himself down wearily upon it. In a few minutes he was fast asleep.
He awoke in time for supper, put a fresh bandage around his arm, and went out into the hotel dining-room. Everything about the Lucky Strike was exceedingly primitive, and the table, the service, and the food were about what one would expect in a pioneer mining-camp. Wild Bill, however, was used to such accommodations and fare.
Following the meal, he smoked a couple of pipes in front of the hotel, saying nothing to anybody, but keeping up a lot of thinking.
The Forty Thieves—so ran the current of his thoughts—was a played-out mine. Those five men, under orders from one Captain Lawless, were salting it. The name of the mine was suggestive, and so was the name of the man who was engineering the salting operations.
“Captain Lawless, of the Forty Thieves!” said Wild Bill to himself. “That has sure got a regular rough-house sound. When Pard Cody hears it, I’ll bet money it will ruffle his hair the wrong way. Crawling Bear will get that paper-talk through some time to-night, and Cody will be here to-morrow afternoon. When he arrives, we’ll prance out to the Forty Thieves and snake those five trouble-makers out of that hole in the ground; then, if Captain Lawless wants to take a whack at us, he’s welcome.”
Wild Bill took no part in the hilarious doings of the camp that night. By 10 o’clock he had locked himself in his room and got into bed. His arm was a bit painful, so that he was an hour or more in getting to sleep. When he was once asleep, however, he did not wake until morning.
His arm felt better. He could use his hand as well as usual. There was some pain in the arm, but it was not severe.
Following breakfast, he went to one of the general stores and bought a new flannel shirt, a pair of boots, and a bowie, to take the place of the one he had lost in the mine.
After that, he sat in front of the Lucky Strike and smoked until dinner-time; and, after dinner, he smoked until four-thirty, when the stage pulled over the rim of the cañon and slid down the slope with the hind wheels tied.
The stage drew up in front of the hotel, and a mail-bag was thrown off. There was one passenger, a man in a linen duster, and clearly a stranger.