CHAPTER XVI
CAPTAIN MOORE'S ADVENTURE
In the meanwhile, never dreaming of the danger at hand, Captain Moore pursued his way up the other branch of the water-course. Here the underbrush was even more dense than where the boys were, and consequently he did not think it strange that he heard nothing of his brother and his cousin.
The fact that he stirred up no game nettled him, and he pushed on, determined to bring down something before he went back.
Suddenly he espied something moving in the patch of wood ahead of him. Rifle in hand, he moved cautiously in the direction.
As he did this, a man glided out from the bushes to his right and followed him as silently as a shadow.
The man was Gus Fetter. The desperado was fully armed, and his face was black with hatred of the young army officer.
As the wood was gained, Captain Moore paused to locate the object he had seen.
But before he could do this, he was caught from behind and his rifle was wrenched from his grasp.
"Fetter!" he ejaculated, as he caught sight of the desperado.
"Up with your hands, Captain Moore!" growled the rascal savagely. "Up, I say! I've got the drop on you!"
Fetter had thrown the captain's rifle to the ground, and now stood upon it. In his hands he held his own weapon, and the muzzle was aimed at the young officer's head.
Realizing that discretion was the better part of valor, Captain Moore threw up his hands promptly, at which the desperado grinned wickedly.
"Where did you come from, Fetter?" demanded the captain.
"From not far away, captain."
"What do you mean by treating a United States army officer in this fashion?"
"I've got a score to settle with you, captain. Don't forget that."
"Are the rest of the gang around?"
"They are."
Following his last words, Gus Fetter gave a long, clear whistle, followed by two shorter ones. At once an answer came back from the woods, and in a few seconds Matt Gilroy appeared.
"Hullo, so you've got him," sang out the leader of the desperadoes. "A good haul. How are you, Captain Moore? Delighted to see me, I suppose."
"Not at all glad to meet you – considering the circumstances," answered the young officer, trying to keep cool, although he realized that he was in a dangerous situation.
"Well, you're honest about it, anyway," said Gilroy with a brutal laugh.
"Have you been following our party?"
"You had better not ask too many questions, captain."
By this time Potts and two other men were coming up. One of the latter carried his left arm in a sling. Captain Moore's recognized him as a fellow who had been wounded in the raid on the quartermaster's party.
The desperadoes consulted among themselves for a few minutes, and then Captain Moore was ordered to march on.
"To where?" he asked.
"You'll see when you get there," answered Fetter. "Now move, or, by the boots, I shoot you down where you stand!"
Seeing it would be worse than useless to resist, the young officer did as ordered, and the whole party moved away from the water-course and took to a trail leading back to the side of the mountain.
Presently they came upon a number of horses, and here they mounted. There were two steeds without riders, and Captain Moore was ordered to the back of one of these. All rode off in a bunch, the prisoner being kept in the center of the party. He had been searched and his pistol taken from him, also his pocket-knife, field-glass, and his money and jewelry.
In less than quarter of an hour a split in the mountain side was gained. To the rear was something of a cave, the entrance overgrown with brush and vines. At the mouth of the cave the party came to a halt, and were met by several other desperadoes.
"Now you can get down," said Gilroy. "Fetter, I guess we had better bind his hands behind him."
"You are going to bind me?" queried Captain Moore.
"And why not? You are such a nice chap, captain, we don't want to part with you just yet."
"Why are you going to keep me a prisoner?"
"Well, don't forget that we hold you responsible for that little mix-up when we were after the quartermaster's money-bags."
"I only did my duty, Gilroy."
"Perhaps; but if it hadn't been for you and your men our gang would have been about twenty thousand dollars richer than we are to-day."
"And I wouldn't have this lame arm," growled the fellow who had been wounded.
"As I said before, I only did my duty," repeated the captain calmly. "Even if I hadn't arrived, don't you suppose the quartermaster would have done all he could to defend himself?"
"Certainly; but his party numbered only three. However, we won't talk now. We have other things to do. Get into that cave. And don't try to escape, or it will be the worse for you."
With a downcast heart the young officer entered the cave, which was an old rendezvous of the desperadoes. Inside were a rude table and a couple of benches, and he threw himself down on one of the latter. One of the gang, Potts, put himself on guard outside, rifle in hand. The others separated into two parties, and went off again.
"Can they be going after Joe and Darry, or after Benson?" was the question the captain asked himself.
He waited until the hoofbeats outside had entirely ceased, then called to Potts.
"Where are they going?" he asked.
"That's Captain Gilroy's business," was the answer.
"Oh, so you call Gilroy captain now?"
"We do."
"How many men is he captain of?"
"About thirty, if you're anxious to know."
"Thirty! There are not that number of desperadoes within three hundred miles of this place."
"All right, if you know better than I do."
"Has the captain gone off for the rest of my party?"
"Perhaps he has."
"It won't do him any good to make them prisoners."
"I reckon he knows his own business best, Captain Moore."
"And what will you get out of this affair, Potts?"
"Me? I'll get my share when we make another haul."
"Do you expect to make another haul soon?"
"As I said afore, better ask the captain. We're organized into a regular company now, and all the privates like me have to do is to obey orders. You know how it is in the regular army."
"A company of desperadoes," mused Captain Moore. "That's something we haven't had out here in years."
Potts would talk no more after this, but sat down on a rock to smoke his pipe and continue his guard duty.
The young captain had had his hands bound tightly behind him, and, try his best, he found himself unable to either break or slip his bonds.
He was anxious concerning himself, but he was even more upset concerning his brother and his cousin.
"If they kick up a fuss, more than likely Gilroy and the others will shoot them down!" he groaned. "It's too bad! I thought we would have a splendid time hunting, and here we are, falling into all sorts of difficulties."
As impatient as he was, he could do nothing but stalk around the cave. The place was five yards wide by over a hundred feet long. To the rear was a rude fireplace, the smoke drifting through some wide cracks overhead. A small fire was burning, and he kicked a fresh log on the blaze, which soon gave him more light. Then he sat down again.
As he rested, his eyes roamed around the rocky apartment, and presently fell upon a sheet of paper lying under the table. Curious to know what it might contain, he bent down backwards, and by an effort secured the paper and placed it upon the table. Then, by the flickering flames, he tried to make out the writing it contained.
The letter – for such the sheet proved to be – was a communication which had been sent to Matt Gilroy by a writer who signed himself Mose. It ran as follows:
"The plan will work perfectly, and all we must do is to wait until the money is at the fort. I am sure the soldiers will leave as requested, and the defense will amount to little or nothing. Will see to it that Colonel Fairfield is drugged, and will treat Captain Moore and the other officers the same way, if I can get the chance."
CHAPTER XVII
THREE PRISONERS
It did not take Joe and Darry long to retrace their steps at the water-course. They continued to call to the young captain, and once Joe shot off his rifle as a signal, but, as we know, no answer came back.
"I can't understand this at all," said Joe, when they halted near the shelter. "I didn't hear him do any firing, did you?"
"Not a shot," answered Darry. "He must have gone away from the brook instead of along the bank."
The two boys hung around the shelter for some time, and then decided to follow up the trail left by the young officer.
This was easy for part of the distance, but soon the footprints became so indistinct that they came to another halt.
"Stumped!" muttered Joe. "We might as well go back to the shelter and wait till he returns. One thing is certain, he hasn't found any game, or we would have heard the firing."
Tired by their long tramp the boys sat down in the shelter, thinking that Captain Moore would return at any moment.
Thus an hour was passed. It was now noon, and Joe and Darry set to work to prepare dinner for themselves.
The repast was just finished when Joe let out a cry of alarm.
"Matt Gilroy!"
He was right. The captain of the desperadoes had appeared, followed by several others.
The boys were taken completely off their guard. Darry made a clutch for his rifle, but on the instant Gilroy had him covered.
"Leave the gun alone!" cried the rascal. "Leave it alone, or it will be the worse for you."
"What do you want?" questioned Joe.
"We want you to behave yourselves," answered Fetter, who was in the crowd.
"You played us a nice trick that time you escaped from the cave," growled Gilroy, eying Joe darkly.
"Do you blame me for wanting to get away?"
"Hardly. But I'll warrant you won't get away again."
"Then you consider me your prisoner?"
"I do."
"Oh, Joe, do you think they met Will – " began Darry, and then stopped short.
"Yes, your brother is waiting to meet you," said Fetter, addressing Joe.
"Then he is also a prisoner?"
"Yes."
Joe's heart sank within him.
"If old Benson was only here!" he muttered.
Still guarding the boys, the desperadoes took their guns and also a pistol the young captain had loaned his brother.
"Now get on your horses," commanded Gilroy. "And mind, if you try to play us foul both of you will get shot."
"Are you going to take us to Captain Moore?" asked Darry.
"Perhaps."
The desperadoes would answer no more questions, and in a few minutes the whole party was off for the cave. Both Darry and Joe wished to leave behind some sort of message which Benson might pick up, but they were watched so closely they could do nothing.
When the cave was gained the boys were told to go inside and keep quiet.
"Joe! and you too, Darry!" cried Captain Moore. "I was afraid of this."
"No wonder we couldn't find you!" said Joe, and told of the hunt he and his cousin had made.
"These rascals are up to some deep game," whispered the young captain. "I just picked up a message which Gilroy must have dropped," and he told what the sheet contained.
"If I were you I'd burn the paper," said Darry. "Then he won't know you have seen it."
"No, I would like to keep the sheet – to show to Colonel Fairfield if I can manage to get away."
"Who wrote the message?"
"I have no idea. There used to be a half-breed around here whom the soldiers called Mose, but I thought he was dead. He was thick with the Modoc Indians."
"Then if he was the writer that would show that the Indians are going to help the desperadoes, wouldn't it?" asked Joe.
Before his brother could answer, Matt Gilroy stalked into the cave.
"I told you not to talk," he growled, as he cast his eye on the table and then around the rocky floor. "You can't get away, so it won't do you any good to plot against me and my men."
He was evidently looking for the sheet of paper, for presently he lit a torch and went over the whole cave carefully.
"See anything of a bit of paper around here?" he asked presently.
"What kind of a paper?" questioned Darry.
"Something with writing on it."
"I haven't seen anything."
"What was the writing about, Gilroy?" asked Captain Moore.
"That's my business. Then you haven't seen the paper? All right," and the desperado stalked from the cave again.
"That was a close shave," whispered the young captain. "And it proves that the paper is valuable and that he is worried about it."
Slowly the balance of the day wore along, and at nightfall one of the men brought them a scanty supply of food.
They ate sparingly, fearing the food might be drugged, but no evil effects followed the meal.
At the mouth of the cave sat two of the desperadoes on guard, each with his rifle across his knees.
"A dash into the darkness might save us," suggested Darry, but the captain shook his head.
"No, those fellows are too good shots," he said. "We will have to remain as we are until something turns up in our favor."
Our friends wondered if the desperadoes would remain about the cave all night. The other party which had gone off when Gilroy went for Joe and Darry had not yet returned, and the leader of the gang seemed to grow anxious concerning them.
"Something has happened to them," he said to Fetter. "Perhaps we had better send somebody off on the trail to find out what's up."
So it was agreed, and Fetter was the man chosen for the mission.
As may have been surmised by some of my readers, the other party had gone off to watch for old Benson and make him a prisoner. The crowd numbered three, and were desperadoes well acquainted with that territory.
The old scout had spent several hours in a vain endeavor to locate some buffalo, when, on resting in the crotch of a tree, he saw the desperadoes approaching.
The rascals were tired out with their search for the scout, and came to a halt directly under the tree.
"It's a fool errand," old Benson heard one of the men say. "Matt Gilroy ought to have been satisfied with corraling Captain Moore and those boys."
"The captain wants to make a grand round-up," answered another of the men. "He told me that if we missed Benson the scout might make trouble."
Benson listened to this conversation with intense interest, and soon learned the truth – that Captain Moore was already a prisoner, and that another party had gone off to bring in Joe and Darry.
"This is a nice state of affairs," he thought. "These rascals mean mischief. I wish I could get the drop on them. I'd soon teach them a thing or two."
He watched the men as a cat watches mice, and, when the party of three moved on, stole after them like an Indian on the warpath.
The desperadoes skirted the brushwood, but did not go out on the grassy slope of the valley, fearing that the old scout might be near by in hiding and see them.
They were a shiftless lot, and soon came to another halt, under some small trees. Here they threw themselves on the ground, and while two of them smoked their pipes the third indulged in a nap.
Not a great distance off was a spring of pure cold water, and presently one of the men got up and walked over to this to get a drink.
"My chance for number one!" muttered old Benson, and crawled after the desperado. As the man turned the corner of a number of rocks, he came up behind, clapped his hands over the fellow's mouth, and bore him to the earth.
CHAPTER XVIII
BENSON PUTS SOME MEN IN A HOLE
The man whom old Benson had attacked was taken completely by surprise, and he went to the ground easily. But, once down, he struggled fiercely to release himself, and at the same time did his best to cry out for assistance.
"Silence!" commanded the scout in a whisper. "If you yell, it will go hard with you."
The desperado now saw who had attacked him, and his face changed color. But he continued to struggle, and was on the point of breaking away when the old scout hit him a heavy blow on the ear, which bowled him over and rendered him partly unconscious.
"Hi! did you call?" came from the other man who had been smoking.
Old Benson looked at the man before him, and saw that the fellow would be unable to do anything for several minutes to come.
"Yes," he answered, in a rough voice. "Here's something funny to look at. Come quick."
At once the second man leaped up, and without stopping to pick up his rifle came to the spring. Old Benson quickly stepped behind a bush, out of sight.
"Hullo, Riley, what's the trouble?" cried the second man when he beheld his prostrate companion.
He bent over Riley, and while he was making an examination old Benson came behind him and threw him as he had thrown the first desperado.
But the second man was "game," and the struggle lasted for several minutes. At one time it looked as if the old scout would get the worst of the encounter, but in the end he triumphed and the rascal was disarmed.
All the time the struggle was going on Benson had been afraid the third man would rouse up, especially as the second called several times for help. But the rascal had now fallen into a heavy sleep, and heard nothing.
What to do with the two desperadoes before him the old scout did not know, until he suddenly thought of a big cave-like hole he had discovered that very morning, while hunting for buffalo tracks. The hole was fifteen to twenty feet in diameter and twice as deep, and once at the bottom he felt certain the desperadoes would have considerable trouble in getting to the top.
"Come with me," he said to the second fellow. "And no monkey shines, if you know when you are well off."
"Wot yer goin' to do wid me?" growled the desperado.
"You'll see. Your blood is so hot it needs cooling off," answered the old scout.
He forced the man along, and soon the big hole was reached. Much against his will, the rascal was forced to drop to the bottom.
"Now, if you try to climb up I'll shoot you," said Benson, and ran back swiftly to where the second rascal was just getting out of his unconscious state.
Before the other desperado could realize what was coming he, too, was down in the big hole. Old Benson made certain that each of the men was relieved of all his weapons.
"Now, I'm going to keep watch on you," he said, as a warning. "Be careful of what you try to do."
"Don't leave us here!" pleaded Riley. "A buffalo or a bear might fall in on us."
"You've got to take your chances on that," answered Benson.
The next movement of the old scout was to go back to where the third man was sleeping. It was an easy matter to secure all the weapons belonging to this fellow. Then Benson procured a rope from their outfit, and bound his feet together and then his hands. During the latter operation the rascal awoke.
"Wot yer doin'?" he demanded sleepily, and then, seeing the old scout, stared in open-mouthed astonishment. "Let go o' me! Wot did yer tie me up fer?"
"You keep quiet," said Benson, with a broad smile over the trick he had played.
"Whar's Riley an' Nason?"
"Not far off."
"Did they go ter sleep too?"
"You can ask them when you see them, Anderson."
"So you know me, do yer?"
"I do, and I haven't forgotten that affair at Mountain Meadow," went on old Benson, referring to a shooting in which Anderson had been the guilty party.
At these words the desperado winced.
"Well, now ye have got me fast, wot yer goin' to do with me?" he questioned.
"I'm going to ask you a few questions, Anderson, and I want you to answer me straight, too. If I learn you've given it to me crooked, I'll fix you for it, remember that."
"Wot do yer want to know?"
"Where are Gilroy and the rest of your crowd stopping?"
"Wot do yer want to know that fur?"
"Answer the question – and tell me the truth," and old Benson looked sternly at his prisoner.
"At a cave near Bald Top," returned Anderson sulkily. "But I don't know how long they were goin' ter stay there."
"Where were they going to take Captain Moore?"
This question came as a surprise to the desperado.
"Wot do yer know about dat?" he cried.
"Answer the question."
"Goin' ter take him to dat same cave, first."
"And then?"
"Dey was bound fer Lone Creek, up to where old Cimber onct had a claim."
"You are telling me the truth? Remember, if you put me on the wrong trail – "
"It's the truth, Benson. But, say, don't be rough on me. I aint such a bad egg. Dat shootin' – "
"I know all about you, Anderson. Now come with me."
Reaching down, the old scout untied the rascal's feet, that he might walk, and then forced Anderson to journey to the big hole.
Here they found the other two desperadoes sitting at the bottom, growling over their luck and speculating upon what old Benson intended to do next.
"If you leave us here we'll die of hunger and thirst," said one.
"No, you won't," answered the old scout. "You've got your hands to work with, and if you aint lazy you can dig your way to the top inside of twenty-four hours."
"And our hosses?"
"I'll take care of them, Riley. If you want 'em again you can get 'em by applying at the fort."
"At the fort!"
"Exactly, and in the meantime we'll keep them in exchange for the animals Matt Gilroy stole, when I and my friends were stopping at Hank Leeson's cabin."
With the desperadoes safe for the time being at the bottom of the hole, old Benson set off without delay for the cave near Bald Top Mountain, as it was called for years by Rocky Mountain pioneers. He rode his own horse, leading the others by his lariat, which he always carried with him.
He fully realized that there was danger ahead, and that if he wanted to assist his friends he must move with caution. He knew that Captain Moore had been made a prisoner, but whether or not Joe and Darry had been captured also was still a question.
Coming in sight of the spot where the cave was located, he dismounted and tied all the horses in the woods at the foot of a slope. Then he crawled forward until he was within a hundred feet of the entrance to the cave.
He was just in time to see Fetter depart on his mission. The desperado passed within fifty yards of where the horses were stationed, and for several minutes Benson was fearful that the animals would be discovered. But Fetter was looking in another direction, and so saw nothing of the steeds.
As darkness had come on, the desperadoes had lit a camp-fire near the entrance to the cave.
Two men still remained on guard. The others took it easy, and did very much as they pleased. All waited for Riley and the others to return with Fetter, bringing in old Benson as a prisoner.
As the scout heard the talk about himself he chuckled grimly and grasped his rifle tighter than ever.
"Reckon you'd be surprised to know I was so close," he muttered. "Well, if it comes to a mix-up, I'll try to hold up my end, just you see if I don't!"