“I do not know what I shall do with you in the end, but at present I intend to disarm you. Drop old Daniel Boone’s rifle you hold in your hand there.”
“I guess not, for it’s too old a settler to be hurt by a little tumble. Drop it, I say!”
“It mout go off an’ shoot yer from ther concussion.”
“My revolver will go off and shoot you from the muzzle, if you don’t obey!”
The outlaw dropped it in such a way, at the same time giving it a kick, that showed he would like to have it explode in the fall and kill his captor.
But it did not, and, kicking it one side, Bill commanded:
“Now, unbuckle your belt and let it fall!”
“Do as I tell you, and be careful not to let your hand touch those blunderbusses you carry, or you won’t know what killed you.”
The man uttered an oath, but obeyed, and the belt of arms fell to the ground.
Bill drew him a few steps away from his rifle and belt, and then, with a sudden violent wrench of the wrist, tore the revolver from the outlaw’s hand, and pitched it over with the other weapons.
“Now, Bad Man of the Big Horn, I was born tired, and don’t like work, so take your knife and set to work to build a house under this tree,” said Buffalo Bill.
“Yer mean a grave?” asked the outlaw, in a tone of horror.
“Yer don’t mean ter kill me, and fust make me dig my own grave?”
“No, you are not worth burying; but I wish to bury that Injun, there, and being lazy, as I told you, I want you to dig his grave.”
The outlaw seemed to feel relieved in knowing that he was not the one to occupy the grave, and he at once set to work, and with his knife began to throw out the earth quite rapidly.
Buffalo Bill sat near, coolly watching him, and keeping him covered with his revolver, and noticing the rapid work of the outlaw, he said:
“I guess you were sexton for some graveyard, Ginger Sam, before you took to thieving?”
“Thet are jist what I were, Bill Cody,” replied the man, stopping in his work.
“And you took to robbing by night the people you buried by day, and got caught at it, I guess, so had to dig for the West?”
“Waal, you hits things pretty squar’, Bill Cody, fer they did plant a leddy in my yard one day, thet were durned fool enough ter leave it in her will thet she were ter be buried in her di’mints an’ t’other jew’lry.