Chapter XX: Another Surprise

When morning came Buffalo Bill began a search of the camp and of the ground over which he had been dragged in the darkness.

At the point where he had thrust the knife into the creature he found marks of blood on the rocks. His knife had gone home, and it was that which had caused the thing to drop him.

Farther on the scout saw pebbles displaced and turned, though the hardness of the ground kept tracks from showing. He at once informed his companions of the nature of his discovery.

Bounderby and Lieutenant Butler joined him, and the others came soon.

Pursuing the general course shown by the displaced pebbles, they shortly gained a softer spot, and in the soil there they beheld again footprints, like those seen the previous day in the sandy area.

The scout looked at them closely, and pointed them out.

“There is proof that the thing which attacked me last night is the thing which carried off the young lady. We are on the right trail.”

Apparently the scout had recovered from the effects of that assault in the night, yet there were dark lines on his throat, and he had not been able to shake off entirely that strange and, for him, unnatural feeling of fear and horror. Fear in its ordinary sense was a thing unknown to Buffalo Bill. Yet he almost quaked when he remembered how those strange eyes had looked down into his in the darkness.

“I have encountered many terrible things,” he said, “but nothing ever before like that. Yet I don’t know what form the creature bore, whether it was like an ape or a man. All I can recall are those terrible, fiery, haunting eyes.”

“The eyes of an orang-utan,” said Professor Bounderby sonorously, “would glow in the darkness like those of an animal, if seen at the right angle. You didn’t notice a greenish glare, I suppose?”

“No, the eyes seemed fiery and staring, as near as I can describe it. They held me spellbound with horror.”

“It is awful to think of Miss Fernald having fallen into the power of such a creature,” said Butler. “We’ll believe that she fainted at sight of the thing, and that if it slew her, the deed was done before she recovered consciousness.”

He looked around with a shudder, as if he feared to behold the horrid shape pictured by his imagination.

Buffalo Bill led the way now, with cocked revolver. The tracks of the monster appeared so fresh that he half expected to come upon it at any moment. At his side strode Lieutenant Butler and Tom Lawler, carrying the necessary parts of the heliograph.

The tracks led by a roundabout course which finally drew the pursuers under some high, natural rock walls, that were set on a sort of plateau.

From the base of these walls the country which had been passed over was visible. The white rock, resembling at a distance the wall of a tent, and the more distant cone-shaped hill that had played such tricks with the compasses, could be clearly seen.

When Buffalo Bill led the pursuers up to the natural rock walls, he saw the ground there was not favorable for trailing, and that again the tracks of the “beast” had disappeared. He pointed out the last track to be seen.

“The orang-utan was moving along the wall,” said Bounderby. “That track looks very fresh, Cody.”

“I should say it was made last night, or early this morning.”

Butler stared along the wall, and ran his eyes here and there, searching vainly for other tracks.

Fritz Henselman, who had been groaning under the weight of the heavily laden hand bag, took this opportunity to set it down. He had kept well behind. That seemed a safer place, and it was a thing his position as a servant enabled him to do without question.

“Brofessor,” he said, panting heavily, “I voult yoost as soon stay here mit de hant pag as to go furder on. Yaw! Vot iss de use? My arms iss pulled off alretty yet. I dinks I stay here mit de hant pag. You vill oxcoose me for nod going any furder along. I am nod afraid uff dot peast, or vatefer it iss. Ton’d dink id! I am yoost tired oudt by too much trafeling Yaw!”

Buffalo Bill smiled, in spite of the weight of uneasiness that burdened his mind.

“But, Henselman,” he said, “if we go on and leave you here, that beast may come on you from the other direction while we are gone; and then what would you do? We don’t know which way it went, and so we can’t tell which way it may come back.”

Henselman jumped to his feet.

“Iss dot so?” he cried, and he picked up the hand bag, apparently forgetting that it was not light in weight, and was ready to move on again. “Uff id vasn’t for dose magnedic needles vich haf peen magnetized py dose magnedic moundains, ve coult fint our vay oudt uff dis place!” he groaned. “Brofessor, I dink now dot de sun iss shining maype ve coult find vich vay ve vish to go. Nein? I am voding dot ve try id. I haf lost not any apes and monkeys vot I shoult pe hunding. Unt dose vimmins is dead long ago. Brofessor, shall ve nod try to fint our vay oudt by der light uff der sunshine?”

“Henselman, I’m ashamed of this show of cowardice!” declared Bounderby, putting on his eyeglasses to give severity to the look he cast on his German servant. “We are engaged in an errand of mercy—the rescue of a young lady from the jaws and arms of a monster, an orang-utan; and shall we here hesitate? Perish the thought! Henselman, we remain with this party, let the result be what it may!”

But even the professor, though his words were brave enough, was shaking a little, as he considered the result of a possible encounter with the thing he had denominated an orang-utan.

Buffalo Bill was moving on, looking for the vanished tracks. A hundred yards beyond he found them again, showing that he had been taking the right course.

As he saw them thus once more, he stared. The tracks entered into a queer-looking place in the rocks, which seemed to have been hewn out, for it was oblong and formed on mathematical lines. Within it was a framework of wood.

“What have we here?” said the scout to Butler, who was at the moment by his side.

“It looks like a primitive sort of elevator,” said Butler.

And, indeed, that was just what it did look like. The hewn-out place in the cliff, together with the wooden framework it contained, resembled an elevator in a marked degree.

“Hello!” the scout added. “What more have we here?” Pressing farther in, his eye had been caught by a stone image. “An Indian idol!” he exclaimed, in astonishment. “Perhaps this is some old Indian chapel.”

Lawler was now at his side, peering in, his youthful features working with excitement and curiosity.

The scout struck a match, and held it up so that it lighted the rather gloomy interior of the “elevator” and fell on the stone image.

The image was apparently an idol, in a recumbent position, with an arm extended and finger pointing. The chisel work on the face was crudely done, yet the Indian features were recognizable.

Bounderby came crowding after Lawler, drawn by the words he had heard.

“A find?” he said.

“A queer one, professor,” said the scout. “Take a look! This seems to be an Indian chapel, and there is the idol. What is it pointing to?”

He held the light down in the corner toward which the finger pointed, and saw there a wooden peg set into a hole.

Bounderby had crowded in, and was staring, with his eyeglasses perched on his nose.

“Not too fast, Cody!” he objected. “I must make accurate notes of this.” He whipped out his notebook. “Here we have what is probably a chapel of the ancient Aztecs, with one of the idols that race worshiped. It is a singular discovery.”

“Did that beast come into this place?” said Lieutenant Butler. “If he did, he went out again, because he could go no farther. This is interesting, but we are wasting time here. His tracks are so fresh out there that if we hasten we may come on him soon. So we oughtn’t to tarry here.”

Henselman came in and dropped his hand bag to the floor with a thud.

“Brofessor,” he said, and his tone had an appeal in it, “I opserve dot de sun is clouding ofer again, so dot py unt py maype de sky vill pe yoost like it vas yistertay. Den ve can’t fint ower vay oudt uff dis blace. I dinks me ve had petter dry id righd now, insteat uff vaiting. Vot you dink?”

“This idol sits in a recumbent position,” Bounderby was saying aloud, jotting down the words in his notebook, “and it has a finger pointed toward the corner of this singular room. Possibly that may indicate something.”

Buffalo Bill was stooping again, with a lighted match, to look at the wooden plug in the corner, to which that stone finger appeared to point. It seemed set tightly in a hole in the stone, but when he pulled on it, the wooden plug came easily away.

At the same time a startling thing occurred. The wooden framework in which they stood began to sink downward into the rock, dropping as if into a well. The thing that had seemed an elevator _was an elevator_.

This sudden drop downward into that well-like space was too startling almost for belief. It seemed to the scout a part of what had appeared to him in the night as a dream—a part of that impression of fiery eyes and darkness and clutching fingers.

Bounderby uttered an exclamation of dismay and astonishment, and Henselman flopped down with a grunt of terrified helplessness.

“_Mein Gott in himmel!_” he cried. “Vat iss? Brofessor, ve iss all dead men!”

Nor were the other members of the party less astounded than Bounderby and the German.

After a quick descent the rickety car stopped with a thump that almost shook Buffalo Bill from his feet.

Henselman emitted another squawk of fear.

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