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Read Ebook: Buffalo Bill's Pursuit; Or The Heavy Hand of Justice by Ingraham Prentiss
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Ebook has 2525 lines and 82416 words, and 51 pages
"Drap yer rope, then!" the voice shrieked. "I kin climb it, mebbe."
The scout lowered the noose end of his lariat into the hole.
"Just place the noose under your arms," he instructed, "and I can help you out."
He felt the rope jerked, and then the voice shouted:
"All O. K. down here; now h'ist away. You're a stranger, but a friend in need; and a friend in need is wuth a dozen angels any day o' the week!"
Buffalo Bill began to haul on the rope, and was instantly aware that the individual in the tree was ascending. There was much scratching, sputtering, and fussing, and many singular exclamations; but slowly the tree prisoner ascended. Then the scout beheld the top of a head, surmounted by a queer hat, or bonnet; so that, at that first glance, he thought he had an Indian in the loop of the lariat.
However, when the neck and shoulders, and then the body of the prisoner appeared, he saw that he had drawn a woman out of the tree.
The fact was amazing, and this woman was as singular a creature as he had ever seen: being a tall, raw-boned, awkward female, with a vinegary countenance, and features as homely as if they had been copied from some comic monthly.
"Hello!" she sputtered, as she clutched the edge of the hole and began to draw herself out. "This here is what I calls an unfort'nit condition fer a lady to be in. B' jings, it is! An' I reckon I've et a peck o' dirt and rotten wood, into the barg'in!" She spat pieces of wood out of her mouth, revealing a row of fanglike teeth. "And I've that mussed up my Sunday clo'es that I won't be able to go to church nex' Sunday!"
At this she cackled in a strange way, as if she had uttered a good joke.
With the scout's assistance, she crawled out of the hole and dropped down in the nest of broad limbs that were matted together in front of the hole, forming there a sort of shelf of verdure.
"Well, may I be switched if I was ever in sich a reedicklus situation before!" she grumbled. "I reckon you never before pulled a lady out o' the top of a tree?"
The scout was staring at her most ungallantly.
"I didn't," he admitted. "I must beg your pardon if I was rough while hauling on that rope."
"Oh, I ain't as light as swan's-down!" she cackled. "I'm purty hefty; and heftier still when I git my mad up and git in a fight."
"But how did you get in such a place?" he was forced to demand.
"I fell in."
"Fell in?"
"You kin understand words, can't ye? Yes, I fell in."
"Well, I clim' up here last night, thinkin' it'd be a safer place to spend the night in than down on the ground, with wolves howlin' 'round, and mebbe road agents perambulatin' along the trail. It looked like a good sort of a nest up here, and I thought I'd try it fer safety; fer I cal'lated that if a wild cat, er a panther, got into the tree, I could git down, mebbe; and I wasn't as afeard o' them as I was o' the wolves I heerd howlin'. And so I clim' up. And while mussin' 'round here on these limbs, tryin' to make myself comfortable, I slipped into that hole, hurtin' my arm some; and then, fust thing I knowed, I was down in the holler of the tree inside, and couldn't git out ag'in."
She laughed in a mirthless way.
"Well, you better believe that I was scai't some, when I found I couldn't git out. I wiggled and I waggled, but it didn't do no good; and there I had to stay."
She laughed again, with that singular, mirthless cackle.
"Well, I was safe enough from wolves and varmints of that kind; you'd better believe I was. I didn't hear a wolf, ner did a single wild cat er panther try to pay me a visit; but when mornin' come I couldn't git out.
"I reckon I hollered so much that if the breath I wasted doin' it was all collected, it'd fill the sails of the British navy. But it didn't do a mite o' good, seemed like, till bime-by I reckon you heerd me."
"Yes, I heard you. Your yells were enough to wake the dead!"
She glanced down into the hole and shivered.
"Now, if you'll permit me, I'll try to help you down to the ground," he said.
"Oh, law, I kin make that all right; that don't trouble me a little bit!"
To show that it did not, she swung down from the nest of branches, and then, grappling the tree as if she were a man, she slid down to the ground. The scout followed her, and soon stood beside her on the shelving slope.
"Lawk, I don't need no help!"
She began to scramble up to the trail.
The scout accompanied her, assisting her as much as she would let him; and soon they stood together in the trail.
PIZEN JANE, OF CINNABAR.
Having arrived at a position in the trail, Buffalo Bill looked more carefully at the woman rescued from her strange prison in the hollow oak overhanging the ca?on of the river.
The woman looked as intently at him, with black eyes that snapped and burned. She inspected him from top to toe, critically, as if trying to size him up and determine what character of man he was. Then a sudden fiery wrath blazed in her black eyes, her lips became pinched, and then opened in one of her strange cackles.
"I guess," she snapped, "that you're the man that's playin' the fake Buffler Bill trick about here. And if ye aire, then I dunno but I'd ruther been left in the tree than to have been helped by ye. Aire you him, er ain't ye?"
Buffalo Bill could not repress a smile at her manner.
She cackled again, scoffing at his declaration.
"What's the proof of it?" she demanded.
"I shall not try to present any proof, other than my word."
"And if you're the fake Buffler, yer word ain't good furder'n a man could sling a steer by the tail. You ain't the fake Buffler?"
"No, madam, I am not."
"Why do ye call me madam, and how'd ye know I ever was married, to desarve that title? Simply because I'm oldish and have lost my good looks? You don't know me?"
"I haven't the honor."
He touched his hat again, but a smile disturbed the gravity of his face.
"Well, I'm Pizen Jane, frum Cinnabar. Never heerd o' me?"
"Shucks! Don't be so perlite. Perliteness is due, mebbe, to young girls with red cheeks and yaller hair, and eyes that keeps rollin' at the men; but it don't b'long in talkin' to a woman like me, that's seen the world, and had all her beauty knocked off her long ago."
He smiled.
"I'm very glad to know you, and wish to assure you again that I am William F. Cody, known to many as Buffalo Bill."
"Jes' the same, I'm goin' to watch ye!"
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