Wild Bill came out of his room, following the sheriff, and locked the door behind him.
“I’m going to get word of this to Buffalo Bill as fast as I can.”
“Out on that very trail, and looking for Benson.”
“You follow the stage, as soon as you can get your men together! I’ll shack out alone.”
Wild Bill went down the stairway to the lower floor three steps at a jump; then ran out to the stable, at the rear of the hotel, where he kept his riding horse.
Before the slower-moving sheriff was well out in the street, Wild Bill had his horse ready, and was in the saddle.
He struck at once into the Calumet Wells stage trail, galloping out of the town; but he did not stick to it long. The appearance of the dust in the trail told him that the stage had passed that way not long before.
“I’ll want to pass round the stage without Benson knowing it, if the scoundrel is in it,” was his thought, “and so get word to Cody. It will take some hot riding to do it, but I’ve got an animal here that can go. Shepard is a slow mover; so he won’t get this far out within an hour, if then; for he will want to get a lot of men together, with horses, and that will take time. The stage will be at Stag Mountain long enough before the sheriff can get anywhere near it. That would be just the place for Cody, if I can get the word to him in time.”
So Wild Bill swung out of the trail, turning off to the right, and rode at a swift gallop.
Occasionally, as he drove his horse on, he consulted his watch, and looked at the rising peak of Stag Mountain, estimating the probable time the stage would get to that point.
Having left the trail, he did not see the stage at all. But he came abreast of Stag Mountain in a remarkably short time, and swung on around it, keeping to the path he had chosen.
“If Cody suspects that Benson may try this trail, in an effort to get out of the town, I’ll find him near the other end of the cañon,” was his conclusion. “I’ll look for him there, at any rate.”
The man from Laramie, knowing of his pard’s plans, judged so accurately that, when he came again into the stage trail, just beyond the cañon, he saw first a rifle poked at him over the bushes, then the head of old Nomad appear.
“Waugh!” the trapper bellowed at him. “I war jest on ther p’int o’ pumpin’ lead at ye. Better swing back on them reins. Buffler’s in hyar.”