In a little while he saw the five Indians on the top of the steep wall which closed in the end of the defile. One of them lowered a rope.
The ruffian thereupon grabbed Cayuse by the shoulders and dragged him to the foot of the wall. The next moment he had made the swinging rope fast to the bonds that secured Cayuse’s wrists.
“Haul away, ’Pachies!” roared the white man, stepping back.
The pull of the rope drew the boy’s arms above his head, and then he was lifted up and up the sheer cliff wall.
“There!” yelled the white man; “make it fast.”
The rope was secured at the brink of the cliff, and Cayuse, hanging by his bound hands, was left swinging against the face of the smooth rock.
Revolver in hand, the ruffian began to fire at the rock, planting his bullets all about the swinging boy.
“Goin’ ter tell me about Buffalo Bill?” he asked.
The white man swore a fierce oath, threw his left arm in front of his face, and laid the barrel of his six-shooter across.
Just as he was about to shoot, he suddenly changed his mind.
“I won’t do it,” he growled; “that would make it too easy fer you. Hang there, ye measly Piute! Hang there until yer arms pull out o’ their sockets, and ye starve an’ die. That’ll teach ye to butt inter a game of Bascomb’s, I reckon. Hi, there, you!” he shouted, lifting his gaze to the Apaches on top of the cliff. “I’m goin’ to Squaw Rock to wait for Hendricks, but you’re to go back along the rim of the gulch and pick off Buffalo Bill and his pards if they come this way follerin’ the Piute. Come ter Squaw Rock an’ report ter me if anythin’ happens. Scatter, now, the five o’ ye, an’ see that ye carry out orders. If you don’t, look out for Bascomb!”
In addressing the Apaches now the white man was not using Spanish or the hand-talk; some among them, presumably, understood English sufficiently to catch his meaning.
Leaping to the back of their ponies, the Indians rode away.
The white man, springing to the path that led to the top of the wall of the defile, mounted it swiftly.
In a few minutes Little Cayuse’s captors were all gone, and Little Cayuse was left swinging helplessly against the bare cliff wall.
The pull on his arms was frightful. The rope seemed to be tearing them out of his body.