CHAPTER XXII.
A STRANGE INTERVIEW.
It is a night of fearful storm, but one that has been full of events to the captives. Taken to the Indian village they were doomed to the stake; but the counterfeit Black Bear coming in with Florence, had learned all—the assault on the cave, the death of Allacotah, which freed the unhappy wife from a bond that must have broken her heart—and by co-operating with Rainbolt, whom Florence brought to the guidance of the released captives, the brave Solomon Strange had, under cover of the storm, set the whole party free; and we now behold them gathered in the Ranger’s Cave, happy enough over their release. But the happiest of all was the ranger himself, who, with his restored wife in his arms, was repaid for his long, long days of suffering.
Only Solomon Strange was abroad on that night. Furiously the wind drove in his face as he moved westward through the woods, guided by the lightning’s glare. But, what cared the mysterious Solomon Strange for the bellowing thunder, the rumbling wind, the sullen roar of the trees, the crashing of fallen timber, the vivid lightning and the rain? Ah, what cared he?
On through the forest aisles he went. On, on.
Presently he entered a small opening in the woods and stopped.
That spot seemed to recall a dark deed to his mind, for it was there that he had beaten down the renegade, Blufe Brandon; and but a little ways off he could hear the waters rushing wildly through the black gorge into which he had thrown the body.
After a moment’s pause he crossed the glade and entered the forest. A few steps more and he had disappeared in the cavern, wherein that day he had left his bear-skin disguise.
Ten minutes passed and then he came forth again, but he wore not the disguise of the Black Bear.
His long yellow hair and whiskers floated around his head and face like ragged streamers in the wild winds.
At the mouth of the cavern he paused and leaned upon his knotted club.
Just then a vivid flash of lightning revealed the figure of a man with a thin, ghastly face and hollow eyes standing before him.
He stepped back and raised his club, for sure was he that an apparition confronted him.
Another flash of lightning. The figure still is there. Solomon Strange started like a guilty thing, as he recognized the man’s features—the features of the renegade, Blufe Brandon.
“Brandon, is it you?” he asked.
“Yes; who are you?” returned the supposed defunct renegade.
“I am Solomon Strange, the Wizard of the West, the same who beat you down in the forest glade, and tumbled you into the gorge for dead. Ho! ho! a right merry time have I had playing Black Bear. Your bear-skin fit me to a gnat’s heel, Mr. Blufe, and then I went up to the robbers’ ranch and passed myself off as Black Bear, and was initiated in the brotherhood of Mountain Men, as you had arranged at the Devil’s Tarn. Oh, a right jolly time had Duval Dungarvon and I, Mr. Blufe. A gay dog is Captain Duval, but he got drunk and I didn’t, and the reason was, he poured goblets of liquor down his throat, while I poured just as much down—upon the floor. And while Duval, the thirsty dog, lay dead drunk, I stole a bottle of his best, gave it to his prisoners, and then let them out, locked the empty prison and hid the key, Mr. Blufe. And all this merry sport I’ve had in your bear-skin, and no one knew but I was Black Bear himself. But, how glad I am that you are not dead, Mr. Blufe, for I felt like I had done a dirty little deed when I flung you into the gorge, so deep, so dark, Mr. Blufe.”
“I believe you are an infernal fool,” returned the bruised and wounded renegade, growing enraged at what he knew must be so.
“Whew! how the winds blow,” continued Strange. “Come into the cavern and I will tell you more, Mr. Blufe. Come in where the rain won’t wash you into the gorge, for there is only a shadow of you left, you unfortunate dog.”
“Go to the devil,” responded the renegade; “I will not go in.”
“But, you must come, you must hear me, Mr. Blufe,” and Strange seized him, and dragging him into the cavern, compelled him to listen to an hour’s tales and talk.
When he had finished, however, he turned and glided out the cavern into the forest.
Soon after Blufe Brandon, weak with loss of blood and fasting, emerged from the cave and moved slowly away toward the Indian encampment, cursing the mysterious author of his sore bones and bruised head.
An hour after his interview with the resurrected chief, Solomon Strange was seated under the shelter of a great pine in conversation with another man, one whom he had requested to meet him there—at the Devil’s Tarn.
That man was the white-haired prisoner of the robbers’ ranch, Gustave Barker.
For hours they sat and conversed as though no storm was raging around them.
Finally the storm died away, and as the moon struggled out through the rifts in the skurrying clouds, Solomon Strange and his companion left their seat beneath the great pine by the Devil’s Tarn, and took their way eastward through the forest.