Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer: or, The Stranger in Camp. Ingraham Prentiss
musing the hermit-miner sat upon his own horse listening to the echoes rumbling through the Grand Cañon, growing fainter and fainter, like a retreating army fighting off its pursuing foes.
An hour passed before the unnerved man felt able to seek a camp for the night, so great had been the shock of the falling cliff, and the fate he had felt had overtaken his comrade.
At last he rode on up the cañon once more, determined to seek a spot he knew well where he could camp, a couple of miles above his destroyed home.
He passed the pile of rocks, heaped far up the cliff from which they had fallen, looking upon them as the sepulcher of his companion.
"Poor Lucas Langley! He, too, had his sorrows, and his secrets, which drove him, like me, to seek a retreat far from mankind, and become a hunted man. Alas! what has the future in store for me?"
With a sigh he rode on up the valley, his way now guided by the moonlight alone, and at last turned into another cañon, for the Grand Cañon has hundreds of others branching off from it, some of them penetrating for miles back into the mountains.
He had gone up this cañon for a few hundred yards, and was just about to halt, and go into camp upon the banks of a small stream, when his eyes caught sight of a light ahead.
"Ah! what does that mean?" he ejaculated in surprise.
Hardly had he spoken when from up the cañon came the deep voice of a dog barking, his scent telling him of a human presence near.
"Ah! Savage is not dead then, and, after all, Lucas Langley may have escaped."
The horseman rode quickly on toward the light. The barking of the dog continued, but it was not a note of warning but of welcome, and as the horseman drew rein by a camp-fire a huge brute sprang up and greeted him with every manifestation of delight, while a man came forward from the shadows of the trees and cried:
"Thank Heaven you are back again, Pard Seldon, for I had begun to fear for your safety."
"And I was sure that I would never meet you again in life, Lucas, for I believed you at the bottom of that mountain of rocks that fell from the cliff and crushed out our little home," and the hands of the two men met in a warm grasp.
"It would have been so but for a warning I had, when working in the mine. I saw that the cliff was splitting and settling, and running out I discovered that it must fall, and before very long.
"I at once got the two mules out of the cañon above, packed all our traps upon them, and hastened away to a spot of safety. Then I returned and got all else I could find, gathered up our gold, and came here and made our camp.
"To-night the cliff fell, but not expecting you to arrive by night, I was to be on the watch for you in the morning; but thank Heaven you are safe and home again."
"And I am happy to find you safe, Lucas. I was within an eighth of a mile of the cliff when it fell, and I shall never forget the sight, the sound, the appalling dread for a few moments, as I fled to a spot of safety, my horses bearing me along like the wind in their mad terror."
"It was appalling, and I have not dared leave my camp since, far as I am from it, for it resounded through the cañons like a mighty battle with heavy guns. But come, comrade, and we will have supper and talk over all that has happened."
The horses were staked out up the cañon, where grass and water were plentiful, and then the two men sat down to supper, though neither seemed to have much of an appetite after what had occurred.
But Savage, the huge, vicious-looking dog, felt no bad results from his fright of a few hours before, and ate heartily.
When their pipes were lighted the man who had lately arrived said:
"Well, Lucas, I brought back provisions and other things to last us a year, and I care not to go again from this cañon until I carry a fortune in gold with me."
"Yes, here we are safe, and I feel that something has happened to cause you to say what you do, pard."
"And I will tell you what it is," impressively returned the one who had spoken of himself as the Hermit of the Grand Cañon.
"Yes," he added slowly. "I will tell you a secret, comrade."
CHAPTER II.
THE MINER'S SECRET
"Pard, after what has happened, the falling of the cliff, and our narrow escape from death, I feel little like sleep, tired as I am, so, as I said, I will tell you a secret," continued Andrew Seldon, speaking in a way that showed his thoughts were roaming in the past.
"You will have a good listener, pard," was the answer.
"Yes, I feel that I will, and you having told me that you were a fugitive from the law, that your life had its curse upon it, I will tell you of mine, at least enough of it to prove to you that I also dare not show my face among my fellow men.
"You know me as Andrew Seldon, and I have with me proof that I could show to convince one that such is my name; but, in reality, Andrew Seldon is dead, and I am simply playing his part in life, for I am not unlike him in appearance, and, as I said, I have the proofs that enable me to impersonate him.
"My real name is Wallace Weston, whom circumstances beyond my control made a murderer and fugitive, and here I am. I entered the army as a private cavalry soldier, and worked my way up to sergeant, with the hope of getting a commission some day.
"But one day another regiment came to the frontier post where I was stationed, and a member of it was the man to whom I owed all my sorrow and misfortune in life. Well, the recognition was mutual, a quarrel followed, and he – his name was Manton Mayhew – fell by my hand, and he, too, was a sergeant.
"I said nothing in my defense, for I would not reopen the story of the past for curious eyes to gaze upon, and accepted my fate, my sentence being to be shot to death. On one occasion, in an Indian fight, I had saved the life of the scout Buffalo Bill – "
"Ah, yes, I know of him," said the listener earnestly.
"He, in return, rode through the Indian country, to the quarters of the district commander, to try and get a reprieve, hoping to glean new evidence to clear me. He was refused, and returned just as I was led down on the banks of the river for execution.
"I heard the result and determined in a second to escape, or be killed in the attempt. Buffalo Bill's horse stood near, and with a bound I was upon his back, rushed him into the stream, swam across and escaped.
"I was fired upon by the scout, under an order to do so, but his bullets were not aimed to kill me. Night was near at hand, and pursuit was begun, but I had a good start, reached the desert and entered it.
"The next day, for the scout's horse was worn down, my pursuers would have overtaken me had I not suddenly come upon a stray horse in a clump of timber, an oasis in the desert.
"I mounted him and pushed straight on into the desert, and the next day came upon a solitary rock, by which lay the dead body of a man upon which the coyotes had just begun to feed. He had starved to death in the desert, and the horse I had found was his.
"At once an idea seized me to let my pursuer believe that I was that dead man; so I dressed him in my uniform, killed the horse near him, left the scout's saddle and bridle there, and started off on foot over the desert, attired as the man whom I had found there.
"With him I had found letters, papers, and a map and diary, and these gave me his name, and more, for I found that the map would lead me to a gold-mine, the one in this cañon in which we have worked so well to our great profit.
"I wandered back, off the desert, and you know the rest: how I came to the camp where you lay wounded and threatened with death by your comrade, Black-heart Bill, who knew that you had a mine which he was determined to have.
"In Black-heart Bill I recognized a brother of Sergeant Manton Mayhew, another man whom I sought revenge upon. Hugh Mayhew had also wronged me as his brothers had, for there were three of them, strange to say – triplets – Manton, Hugh, and Richard Mayhew, and to them I owed it that I became a fugitive from home.
"You