CHAPTER XI.
A MEETING AT THE DEVIL’S TARN.
The Devil’s Tarn and the Crystal Falls were one and the same. The latter name had been given the torrent of Rodger Rainbolt, who, as the reader already knows, dwelt in the secret cavern whose entrance was concealed by the falls. To those dwelling in the mountains—the hunters, robbers, and Indians, the place was known as the Devil’s Tarn, and by this name we will call it hereafter.
It was about two hours of midnight on the evening of the same day that Rodger Rainbolt had unexpectedly rode into the Indian encampment on Lodge Pole, that the figure of a man wrapped in a kind of military cloak, and wearing a broad-brimmed hat and pair of high-topped boots, and carrying a bull’s-eye lantern, might have been seen pacing to and fro beneath the boughs of a great pine tree that stood but a few feet from the head of the Devil’s Tarn.
Presently, his keen ear caught the soft tread of moccassined feet, and the next moment a dark hairy figure emerged from the black wood and advanced toward him. The man lifted his lantern and flashed it upon the figure of the new-comer.
It was Black Bear, the Cheyenne chief. And the man who held the lantern was Duval Dungarvon, the robber-captain.
“Ay, Duval Dungarvon, and so you’re on time,” said the chief, seizing the robber by the hand.
“Yes, my handsome Black Bear, I am always up to time; but where’s the girl?” replied Dungarvon.
“Gone to the devil,” bluntly replied Black Bear.
“Come now, don’t trifle with me, Blufe Brandon!” exclaimed the robber-captain, fiercely. “I ask you where the girl is?”
“And I tell you she’s gone to the devil,” returned the chief.
“What do you mean, Brandon?”
“Simply what I say; that infernal white ranger known as Rainbolt, rode right into camp—picked up your girl, and—”
“And what?” gasped the robber-captain with impatient rage and fury.
“And went—to—the—devil with her, as I told you before,” returned, with emphasis, the chief.
The robber-captain ground his teeth with rage, stamped his foot with fury, and swore a terrible oath.
“Come, come, Dungarvon! I am going—”
“Yes, yes!” returned Dungarvon, savagely, “you’re always going to do something. Just like as any way, the girl’s in California by this time.”
“Not a bit of it, Captain Duval,” returned Black Bear; “that girl is in these ‘Hills,’ and wherever Rainbolt is, she is, also; and I know he is not far away.”
“Well, how do you know?”
“Because he rode right through the heart of our encampment to-day, and—”
“And escaped?”
“Yes, escaped.”
“Ha! ha! ha! ha!” laughed the robber-captain, his voice ringing out above the roar of the Devil’s Tarn; “well, that beats any thing on record. But, do you know who that ranger is?”
“Yes, your rival for the hand of Silvia Sanford.”
“Curse you, Brandon; if it wasn’t for one thing I’d shoot you for your insolence.”
“No doubt of it, and it wouldn’t be the first man you’d shot, either,” returned Black Bear.
“Well, well, let’s talk business, Black Bear. I’m bound to have that girl if I have to wade through fire and brimstone.”
“Whew, captain! but you’re desperately in love!”
“In love!” sneered the captain; “humph! all I want the girl for is to torture Sanford, for I know he worships her like I did the dark-eyed Inez, her mother. He cheated me out of the other girl, and I’ll be hanged if he does this one. But if he could jist get a hold on old Barker he’d be all right; but I’ll see to Barker. For two years he has lain in prison up at my ranch, and seems as though he never will die. He’s nothing but a living skeleton now, and if I wasn’t afraid of needing him some time I’d tumble him into the Dead Gorge. But to business. Now, if you will hunt up and deliver into my hands, at my ranch, within the next week, Silvia Sanford, I will add five thousand more to what I offered you at Omaha. What say you?”
“I’ll do it, if it costs me every brave in my tribe,” replied Black Bear, excited at the liberal reward of his friend.
“And there is another thing, Brandon,” said the robber-chief; “I was thinking that, if you were one of my band, as well as an Indian chief, we could throw our forces together and work to a better advantage.”
“And I’ve been thinkin’ that I would like to join your order if it wasn’t for your confounded initiatory ceremony.”
“I’ll admit it does make a fellow a little shaky in the joints,” said Dungarvon; “but I’ll tell you what I’ll do. If you will meet me to-morrow noon at the Lone Pine, I’ll give a synopsis of the ‘ceremony,’ that you will not be unnerved in case you will join us.”
“I’ll do it!” returned the renegade, emphatically; “to-morrow noon at Lone Pine, and I’ll expect you to tell me the truth in regard to the ‘ceremony,’ for a nice story it would be to get out, that Black Bear, the great Cheyenne chief, had shown the white feather at a ceremony!”
“Ha! ha! ha! Brandon,” laughed Dungarvon; “you are naturally weak in the joints, but let it be understood—to-morrow noon, at Lone Pine.”
“I will not fail you, rest assured,” said Black Bear.
Dungarvon mounted a horse which he had hitched near, and soon he was thundering away over the stony hills, back to his den.
Black Bear turned and glided away through the woods toward his village, and as he did so, a figure—the figure of a tall man with long, yellow, disheveled hair streaming behind, and carrying a heavy club, crept from the bushes within five feet of where the villains had held their interview, and stole with the silence of a phantom after the chief, his huge club upraised to beat him down.
It was Solomon Strange, the madman.