“He say dot he stop in dis camp shust pecause oof me,” blushed Frieda, “und he don’d tell nopody else der segret oof his being pards mit Puffalo Pill.”
At that moment Jacobs arrived with the horses.
“That will do, Frieda,” said McGowan. “I hope, for your sake, that the Dutchman is all he represented himself to be.”
McGowan and Bernritter went out and climbed into their waiting saddles.
“Which way did the fellow go, I wonder?” muttered the super.
“He took the Phœnix trail,” said McGowan. “I passed him on the road.”
The three horses were put to the gallop and the mine-owner and his assistants dashed out of the camp.
Frieda watched them until they disappeared, and then went back to the chuck-shanty with something like alarm in her eyes.
“Dere iss somet’ing oop,” she murmured, “und I hope dot nodding goes wrong mit Villum.”
The plot was thickening, however, and “Villum” was booked for considerable trouble.
The reader, perhaps, will have recognized the baron from the description of him already given, and will know at once that he told Frieda the truth when he said he was a pard of Buffalo Bill’s.
The baron had been sojourning at Yuma--not in the penitentiary, as Bernritter insinuated--but in one of the town’s best hotels.
He had received a telegram saying that the scout would be in Phœnix at a certain time, and he had started for Phœnix. After several days of leisurely travel, halting betimes at ranches and settlements, Fate directed the German to the Three-ply Mine.
It was the baron’s intention to halt at the Three-ply merely long enough to water his horse and himself, and inquire his most direct road to his destination. But Frieda came out to give him his directions, and the baron’s heart began to pound like a trip-hammer.
Instead of asking which way he ought to go, the baron inquired if he could stay in the camp for a day or two, paying good money for his accommodation. _Frau_ Schlagel, Frieda’s mother, kept all such money as her own perquisite, and the doughty baron was made welcome.
He stayed four days, and hung about the chuck-shanty nearly the entire time.
The baron wanted Frieda to become Mrs. Von Schnitzenhauser. Frieda declined the honor, but she did it in such a way as to give the baron grounds for hope.