Benson was in hiding on this hill, and he had seen them coming.
He was armed, and in a desperate frame of mind.
“So, they think they’ll surround me, and get me!” he snarled, when he saw Wild Bill and Shepard go in one direction, and the scout, with the others, in another direction. “There will be dead men here, if they crowd me.”
He got into a position where he could see the approach of Buffalo Bill and those with him, for he feared the scout most of all.
They passed beneath him, in a troughlike depression. He saw them enter the “dip,” and was seized with the thought that he might slay them all, when they gained a certain point.
Close by him was a great bowlder. He was familiar with it, and knew that it might be set in motion down the hill if a lever were set under its edge. He found a stick that would do for the lever, which he put in position; then he waited.
He could not see them now, but he could hear them. When he judged the right moment had come he threw his weight and strength on the lever, and started the stone.
He started more than that--he started a landslip!
The crash of the bounding bowlder, and the roar of the landslip which it had started, warned the scout and his pards of their peril.
Yet it seemed that the discovery of their danger came hardly in time.
But as they ran for their lives the Dutch pard went down before the terrible landslip.
Fortunately, Baron von Schnitzenhauser was an exceedingly quick-witted man in times of danger; otherwise, it is probable he would not have lived so long.
He scrambled for a hole that had a covering of rock, in the shape of a shelf, and hurled himself under it just in time.
With a booming roar the bowlder passed over him; then the loosened soil and rocks followed it, with a noise that was deafening.
The baron was buried, apparently; but he still could breathe; for the shelf of rock held the weight of the débris from even touching him.
Buffalo Bill and Nomad turned back. The landslip had passed, but a cloud of dust hovered. Out of it floated those yells of the baron.
“Waugh! He’s livin’, anyhow,” said Nomad.
The yells of the baron also brought Wild Bill and Matt Shepard; they had started when they heard the landslip.
It took two hours to dig the baron out; but he issued forth without a scratch on him.