Buffalo Bill and the Baron rose out of the bushes and stepped into the trail, where Wild Bill had brought his panting horse to a halt.
“I cal’lated et, soon’s I seen ’twas you!” said Nomad.
“Tim Benson is coming in the stage, so I was told. Shepard gave me the word; and though it is just a guess, I straddled my animal and brought it to you.”
“And the stage is due here at almost any minute,” was Buffalo Bill’s comment.
“Yes, I reckon it is. I rode like the devil was after me, for I was bound to git here first. Shepard is to follow it with a posse; but it’ll take him half a day, likely, to turn round a few times and get under way.”
“Uff idt iss drue,” said the baron, “I gan see some bromise of a varm dimes goming. Dot Penson iss a fighdter.”
“Yes--and it’s a funny thing! Vera Bright is in the same stage.”
“Waugh!” Nomad whooped. “Thet actress woman. But she’s his inemy.”
“As I understand it, she didn’t know he was to go, and perhaps didn’t recognize him; he’s got a wonderful way of changing his appearance--never saw anything like it. The only thing I’m afraid of is that a mistake has been made, and he ain’t in the stage with her at all. She went; that’s sure. And a man went--a small man, about the size of Benson; one of the stableboys says he knows it _was_ Benson. Now you know all I do.”
“Budt ve vill haf to do some mofing kvick,” averred the baron. “You vill pe hearing dot stage in apowet fife minudes.”
“You’ll have to look out for Benson’s revolvers,” the man from Laramie warned. “He’s quick with the trigger, and he will shoot if cornered. We’ve got to get the drop on him.”
Buffalo Bill took charge of the situation, and led his friends at a run toward the cañon, which lay like a black gulf on the southern side of the low peak called Stag Mountain.
Through the cañon the trail ran, and because the cañon was dark, with bushes growing on each side, it had for many months been a favorite place for hold-ups. Benson had used it in that way a number of times himself.
Hardly had the scout and his friends got into position in the bushes in the cañon when the rumble of wheels announced the approach of the stage.
They soon afterward heard the snapping of Elmore’s long whip, and the voice of the driver. He was singing, to give himself and his passengers assurance. Elmore always got nervous when he came to that spot. Though he had been in a score of hold-ups and never injured, he expected that each would be his last. If there had been another way for the stage, he would have taken it. There was a bridle path, which Wild Bill had followed; but though it was wide enough for a horse, the stage could not get through it.