“Nomad brought me here,” said the scout. “He was trapped by J. Algernon Smith in a similar way to what you were, and he was brought here and left in the level, bound and gagged. I came to find you, and found him. He was in a sorry fix, Nick was, Hickok. He told me he had heard ghosts, and he was for leaving the mine on the run.”
The old trapper wore a sheepish look.
“Waal,” he grunted, “them noises I heerd shore sounded like they mout be ghosts. No human bein’ ever made sich sounds, accordin’ ter my thinkin’.”
“It’s blamed lucky for me,” observed Wild Bill, “that Cody isn’t superstitious. If he had been, Bill Hickok would have been company front with his finish. But tell me everything. I’m like a man that has been in solitary confinement for so long that the mere sound of a human voice is refreshing. Talk to me, you fellows, and I’ll lean back against the wall and listen.”
Hickok was fully informed of preceding events by the scout and the trapper, Wah-coo-tah being brought into the recital, since she alone had furnished the scout the tip that had led him to the mine.
“From what you say of the girl,” remarked Wild Bill, “she seems to be of a different caliber from that of her tinhorn father.”
“She is,” averred the scout, “if I’m any judge of character.”
“It’s a good thing for her the Ponca slipped into the shaft. But for that, he’d have caught her, sooner or later. An Injun isn’t giving up five good ponies just to let himself be beaten out of his bargain.”
Wild Bill got to his feet and gave himself a shake.
“Feel like climbing fifty feet of rope, Hickok?” asked the scout.