When morning came a considerable force arrived from Blossom Range. It was composed of the most courageous men of the town, and they were well armed.
Buffalo Bill, taking command of this force, moved on the village of the Utes. But there was now no one in the village who sought to oppose him. The warriors who had howled and danced throughout the night lay in a stupor and were helpless; several warriors were dead. The woman and children, with the older men, and such of the braves as had not been able to get enough of the doctored whisky to hurt them, were alone able to meet the force of the scout and talk intelligibly.
They were dreadfully frightened by this array of fighting men from the town, and seemed ready to make any promises demanded. They were not to blame, they said, for what had happened. The white men who had brought the whisky should alone be blamed. One of the white men who did it was dead, the other had fled from the place.
But the body of Gorilla Jake could not be found. This, the Indians explained, was because it had been burnt on the bonfire the Utes had built and kept roaring through the greater part of the night.
Old Iron Bow was in a stupor, from which he was aroused with difficulty. Even then he could give no satisfactory account of what had happened. But he and some of the worst of the warriors were placed under arrest by Dugan, and were taken down to the Blossom Range jail.
Buffalo Bill and his friends searched the Ute village through and through, but were not able to find Tim Benson.
“He’s a feller yer cain’t never ketch,” said Nomad.
Buffalo Bill did not side with this view.
He sent orders everywhere, which blocked all the trails leading from Blossom Range and the country surrounding it, and sent messages again to all the surrounding towns and mining camps.
“I’ll get him yet,” he said in serene confidence. “You see, he is probably now in the hills, or else has come right back into Blossom Range. If he is in Blossom Range it must be our work to see that he don’t get out again. If he is out in the hills he will starve there, so will have to come in.”
But old Nomad had seen the hopes of the scout baffled so often by the clever road agent that he had become pessimistic on the subject of the capture of Tim Benson.
Nevertheless, the old trapper did not relax his efforts. Buffalo Bill never had better lieutenants than Nomad, Wild Bill, and the baron. They gave their strength and time night and day to watching and shadowing. Wild Bill kept a close watch on all the gaming places of the town, knowing that Benson was a notorious gamester, and would be found in such places if he felt that he could visit them safely.
Benson’s ability at disguising was not forgotten. So every man and woman leaving the town was subjected to an examination.
It was bad for the business of the town, but it brought results.
Benson had really fled into Blossom Range, stopping on the way only long enough to remove his Indian paint and feathers and assume his ordinary clothing, which he had kept with him in the Ute village and brought out of it.
For a day or two he hid with a friend, who fed him and kept him secluded.
But this friend was soon suspected and arrested. Benson had to leave his house.
The few friends left now in the town became afraid to harbor him.
At last a day came when Benson, grown desperate, hungry, wearied with hiding like a terrified wolf, came boldly out into the street. Yet he had taken the care to give himself a change of clothing, which he stole during the previous night, so that he was not now the dapper gambler and desperado, but appeared as a miner in rough clothing and clay-stained boots.
“There are miners going in and out of the town to their work every day, and I’ll try that trick,” he said to himself. “I can’t get away during the night, for no man is permitted to go out who is not known, so I’ve got to make the try in broad daylight. If I fail——”
He walked boldly down the street, passing dozens of men, who gave him not a second glance.
“They don’t know me! I guess I can work it. But I’ve got to get farther than just out in the hills. How will I do that? All the surrounding towns are guarded, with men looking there for me, so I can’t go into the towns. And if I stay in the hills I’ll starve; a coyote couldn’t live there. I think I’ll have to try the stage again.”
Yet he knew that no man whose identity was not clearly proven could leave now by the stage.
Benson had not proceeded half a mile when he saw the man whom he feared above all others—Buffalo Bill.
The great scout had been standing at a street corner, as if at ease with himself and the world, also apparently not watching any one or looking for any one.
But it was evident that he had seen and spotted Benson as soon as the latter appeared in sight.
When Buffalo Bill sauntered with seeming carelessness across the street to intercept Tim Benson old Nomad was in another street, which hid him from Benson’s sight, though he and the scout could see each other.
The scout put up his hand in a peculiar way, much as if he were settling a refractory cuff in place, a sign which Nomad saw at once and understood.
Benson was still under the impression that Buffalo Bill had not recognized him, when the scout, after brushing by him, turned quickly, with handcuffs ready for Benson’s wrists.
“Better surrender without trouble, Benson!” he said in a low tone. “I’ve got you, you see.”
Benson whitened to the lips; then in desperation he whipped out a revolver and fired at the scout. The scout ducked and seemed to reel. At the same instant the trapper came yelling upon the scene.
“Waugh!” old Nomad whooped. “Better drap et, Benson, fer ye’re shootin’ only blanks!”
The shouted words, telling him his revolver held only blanks, confused and balked Benson for a moment; it made him uncertain, and that caused him to hesitate. The scout had not been touched by Benson’s bullet, and it gave him the time and opportunity needed.
He sprang upon Benson. When the latter’s hand went up again with the revolver, Buffalo Bill turned the weapon aside and at the same time snapped the wrist in the handcuff; then, with a swing, he caught and brought the other wrist round.
“Click!” sounded the manacles.
The revolver fell to the ground, and Benson reeled back against the wall. That click and the touch of the cold steel on his wrists let him know that the great scout had him at last.
Not until the thing had been done and the handcuffs held his arms together did Benson come to a full realization that Nomad had shouted those words simply to confuse him and cause him to lose time.
He turned upon the old trapper furiously.
Nomad only laughed.
“Thet’s all right, ye reprobate,” said the trapper. “We wanted ter ketch yer, so I didn’t want ter drap ye with a bullet myself, or hev ye drap Buffler. Ye’re the star road agent o’ this section and the king o’ all the desperadoes that’s been workin’ round hyer; but now we has got ye. Et’s the final scoop.”
Tim Benson, a very few minutes later, was in the jail of Blossom Range, whither his pals had gone before him.
As for the Utes, old Iron Bow and the others who were jailed, they were released in a few days and permitted to return to the village. It was held that, being savages, they were not really responsible for deeds committed under the influence of desperate white men and strong drink.
The Betts brothers did not get that reward.
They could not produce the body of Gorilla Jake, dead or alive. Yet there was no doubt that he had suffered at the hands of the Utes a terrible punishment for his crime of furnishing them with drugged whisky.
THE END.
No. 102 of the Buffalo Bill Border Stories, entitled, “Buffalo Bill, Peacemaker,” is a rattler that any boy would sit up all night to read. The great scout’s hunt for peace gets him into all sorts of trouble, and every page has its thrills.