Chapter XIX: A Startling Attack

Buffalo Bill and his companions camped that night at a distance even farther in the hills than before. They had made no discovery. The tracks of the girl and of the strange creature that had followed her could not be traced beyond the sandy area.

Yet so persistent had been the search that the night camp was made only after the light had failed, and the first satisfactory meal of the day was then eaten.

Major Fernald and his party had not been sighted, and their present location could not be guessed.

The distress of Lieutenant Butler and young Lawler was marked that evening; they had almost given up hope.

“It’s a terrible thing,” said Butler. “That a young woman of refinement and education, a woman of beauty and culture, should meet such a fate is something almost too horrible to think about. And she was as kind and good as she was beautiful. You would have said so, Cody, if you had known her.”

“I begin to believe that I do know her,” said Buffalo Bill, with a smile. “Unless I am greatly mistaken, she is the daughter of a ranchman, a girl whom I recently had the honor of rescuing from the clutches of Red Reynard. I am much interested in her fate.”

“This is going to kill her brother, the major.”

“I haven’t given up yet,” declared the scout. “I shall cling to hope until we know that we can’t hope any longer. We’ll begin the work again at daylight.”

Worn out by fatigue, Buffalo Bill slept rather soundly that night. But shortly before day he was awakened by a strange feeling of fear, which impressed him with a danger he could not combat or comprehend. He was shivering with dread as he opened his eyes. He almost cried aloud when he saw that he was looking straight up into another pair of eyes. The darkness was great, and his position was such that he could see nothing but the eyes, which looked down into his with a strange and fear-inspiring glare.

The scout was held by a horrible spell. A weight seemed to be pressing down on his chest. He struggled with the feeling, and, throwing it off partly, he tried to turn his body, and reached up to push aside the face that held those terrible eyes, even though he could not see the face.

When he did so he felt himself seized about the throat in so strong a grip that it seemed as if the muscles of his neck had been compressed suddenly by iron bands.

As those fingers, or claws, settled on his throat, his head was jammed backward against the earth. This, together with the quick choking, almost deprived him of his senses. Then he felt himself jerked to one side, and dragged over the ground. It was like a horrible nightmare, and he felt that he must be dreaming. Yet he knew better.

Struggling fiercely to throw off that awful clutch, which seemed to be crushing his neck, the scout succeeded in drawing his knife.

With a swing he plunged the blade into the side of the thing that held him. That swinging stroke was followed by a sound of some kind. There was a blow in the scout’s face, and his head fell backward.

When he returned to consciousness, after having lain without sense or motion for many minutes, darkness and silence were around and over him. He put his hand to his throat, which ached with a heavy, dull pain. His lungs were choked and wheezing, his head throbbed, and his eyes felt as if they were about to jump out of their sockets. Worse than all was that horrible fear, still chilling him and seeming to stop the very current of life in his body. Yet he knew he was alone, that the creature, whatever it was, had gone.

Then he heard a voice. It sounded far off at first, but a moment later it seemed quite near. He recognized it as the voice of Lieutenant Butler, and he knew then that Butler and the others were hunting for him.

The great scout lifted himself on his elbow and looked around in the gloom. He saw no one.

“Here!” he called, and to his ears his voice sounded husky and strange.

They came running to him—Lieutenant Butler, Tom Lawler, Professor Bounderby, and Fritz Henselman.

“What has happened to you?” said Butler, when he reached the scout. “Lawler heard something, and he thought he saw you being dragged away. Then we knew you were gone, and we aroused the camp, and ever since have been looking for you.”

“How long ago was that?” Buffalo Bill asked.

“Fully ten minutes.”

“What did you see dragging me, Lawler?”

“I don’t know, I couldn’t make out. I shouldn’t have known it was you but for a groan that I thought you made, and then we found you were not in the camp, and knew it was you. But what attacked you I don’t know.”

“Yet you really saw me dragged out of the camp?”

“Yes.”

Cody tried to sit up, and then to stand.

“If you will help me, Lieutenant Butler, I’ll try to get back to the camp. As soon as daylight comes I hope to find the tracks of the thing that attacked me.”

Butler and Lawler gave him aid in getting to the camp, while Professor Bounderby and the German made a pretense of watching for the return of the “thing,” whatever it was.

“Tell us just how it looked,” said Bounderby, when the scout was in the camp and in some condition for talking.

“I don’t know, I saw only its eyes. I had the most singular feeling of fear I ever experienced. I think it must have been the kind of fear a superstitious man has when he thinks he is in the presence of a ghost. Only this was no ghost, its grip was altogether too solid and material. Its fingers fairly cracked my neck. When I roused up, the thing was looking straight down into my eyes, and all I could see were those terrible eyes staring into mine. I wanted to yell. In my opinion, professor, we have found the thing that carried off Miss Fernald, or, rather, it found me. Perhaps it meant to carry me away, and failed. I’m sure I struck it with my knife, and perhaps that saved me.”

“The orang-utan is a strange beast,” said Bounderby, with oracular certainty. “You spoke of its fingers. That is permissible, for an orang-utan, you know, is a four-handed animal. When we say it walked upright on its hind feet, we really mean it walked on its hind hands.”

He produced his notebook and began to scribble in it.

“If you could describe just the sound it made after you struck it with your knife, at the moment it released you, I can make a note of it here, and use it in my lecture.”

“If that thing captured Miss Fernald, she is dead!” declared Butler, with much feeling.

The German had sat through all the talk, quiet, yet quaking.

“Uff id capture us ve iss all dead!” he declared now. “De young voman iss gone—kilt. Vy should ve stay here and be kilt alretty, too? I ton’d vish to investigation any pizness like dot. Brofessor, I t’ink ve petter pull ower freighd oudt uff dis blace vhen de daylight come, unt I hobe id vill come qvick.”

There was no more sleep for any of the party that night. They sat in the darkness, with loaded weapons, watching for the return of the thing that had attacked the scout, and they beheld it at various times, in various forms, by the aid of their excited imaginations, sneaking across the rocks toward them.

Yet it did not return.

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