Chapter VII: Skull and Crossbones

The current decreased when they entered this wide valley. The cañon had disappeared beyond the tunnel, and here were only broken hills and sandy river banks inclosing the stream. At points along the stream were trees and bushes.

When they were nearly a mile out from the tunnel, and the current had dropped to no more than seven or eight miles an hour, they beheld in front of them a low, bush-grown island. Then, looking off to the right, where the stream made a bend beyond the island, they were astonished to behold houses amid the trees on the river bank. They seemed to be large cabins, and their presence denoted human occupancy.

“That letther wasn’t a lie at all!” Flynn repeated, when he saw those houses.

“And if what it said is true, that Red Reynard is in here with a lot of his villains, we’ll be a good deal better off if they don’t see us,” the scout remarked, as he turned the prow of the canoe toward the shore, which presented a sandy bluff at that point.

“We’ll get under that bluff,” he said, “where we’re not so likely to be sighted by whoever occupies those cabins, and then, I think, we’d better try to land on that island, and go into hiding there until we see who is in this valley.”

The eyes of Cudjo were round and staring. When he turned them from the cabins to the surface of the river he uttered an ejaculation of fear.

“Marse Cody, dar it is!” he said in a whisper. “Dar’s dat alligator. He riz right plum’ up f’um de bottom of de river. Yo’ see ’im, doan’ you?”

They could not but see the scaly saurian, as it floated on the surface of the water. Apparently, it had not seen them. At the small bend just below the saurian turned across the stream, heading as if for the island.

“Hit look des lack it’s leadin’ de way, and sayin’ for us to come on!” whispered Cudjo, his eyes staring. “Marse Cody, I doan’ lack de appearance ob dat, does you? Looks as if he’s leadin’ us on. I reckon mebbe he’s livin’ over dar.”

The canoe, turning at that bend, for the high bluff ended there, was following in the wake of the big saurian. They saw it reach the low shore of the island, where it sank from sight, and did not rise again.

This crossing of the river in the broad light of day was a ticklish thing, and the scout kept his eyes trained as much as possible on the river banks below, and on those cabins. He was anxious not to be seen.

They made their landing at almost the spot where the big saurian had disappeared. Stepping ashore there, they drew out the canoe, then took the load out of it, and carried it back into the bushes. They did not believe they had been observed.

As for the “alligator,” Cudjo was the only one who feared it, and because he feared it he kept well back from the water.

The island consisted of several acres of bush-grown land lying in the middle of the river, which here widened out into a sluggish stream, so different from its hitherto known characteristics.

Having concealed the canoe and their belongings, Buffalo Bill and his companions made their way quietly through the brushy ground to the other side of the island.

They beheld now an astonishing sight. Instead of the few cabins, which they had supposed were the only ones, they beheld a village.

The cabins were ranged along the right bank of the river, in the midst of trees, less than a mile below the flat island. Between the houses ran a single wide street, which paralleled the course of the river. Men were seen walking in this street, and down by the river other men were seen working, as if they searched for gold, or were washing it.

Buffalo Bill brought out his binoculars and covered the houses and the men with them. The houses were big log cabins, though some of them seemed to have additions constructed of mud and stone.

“That letther wasn’t anny lie at all, at all!” said Mike Flynn, repeating what he had said so many times before.

“It looks as if it were true; and if so, then Red Reynard, the Fox, has his lair right here before us. Take a look, Flynn.”

Michael surveyed the cabins and the men carefully and long.

“Begorra, it’s too bad they ain’t honest min!” he said. “We could walk out and jine thim, av they were. But I’m guessin’ it wouldn’t be wise to thry it.”

“Anything but wise, Flynn. We’ve got to find out what all this means, before we venture to show ourselves.”

“I’d like to know now, so I would, if Klamath John is dead or livin’, and what he mint by what he did. Troth, so I would! It’s that quare I can’t make annything out av it. What do yez think av it, Cody?”

He returned the glasses, and the scout gave them to Cudjo, asking him to take a look and report whatever he saw. Cudjo, after a few moments’ survey, began to search the river with the binoculars.

“Marse Cody, did dat ’gator go on downstream?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Well, I ’clar to goodness I fink he’s comin’ back! I sho’ seen somepin’ down dar looked lack his haid stickin’ up.”

Buffalo Bill and Flynn, not being greatly interested in the “alligator,” continued to speculate concerning the houses and the men.

“If dem men finds us heah, Marse Cody, we’s gwine see int’restin’ times,” Cudjo prophesied.

“An’ that ain’t anny lie!” said Flynn.

“Yes,” assented the scout, “we’ll have to be careful. But I don’t think they come often to this island. There are signs that they’ve been here, but not for several days.”

He pointed to some marks on the sandy shore just below, where digging had been done in the sand. When they looked closely they beheld tracks of human feet.

“Marse Cody, how is we gwine tuh git out o’ dis place?” said Cudjo.

“I don’t know. That’s to be found out. We’re safe for the present. And we’ve plenty to eat. But we’ll have to eat it without cooking, for the smoke of a fire would certainly attract attention.”

For a long time the scout and his companions stared out from the shelter of the bushes, watching the village, and the men they saw moving about.

As the scout was making a final survey of the cabins with his binoculars, he turned them on the open door of a cabin, hoping to see the interior. What the glasses brought into view above the door was startling and suggestive.

“A skull and crossbones, and not a mere representation of them!” was his thought. “Flynn,” he said, “take the glasses, and tell me what you see just over the door of that cabin.”

Flynn took the binoculars and trained them on the cabin door.

“I hope I’m not dr’amin’,” he said, “but if that ain’t a skull, and if thim ain’t the thigh bones av a man crossed under it, thin I am dr’amin’ or cr-razy. What does it mane, begorra?”

Cudjo clutched the glasses and looked through them.

“Marse Cody, you ’members dem stick pins? It’s des lack um, ober dat door.”

The scout and Flynn had thought of the stick pins even before Cudjo thus spoke of them.

“The skull and crossbones!” said Buffalo Bill. “If Klamath John found the stick pins with that letter written by Red Reynard, the Fox, it’s easy enough to connect the skull and crossbones on the stick pins with those over that door.”

“It begins to luk as though that felly wasn’t lyin’ whin he towlt yez how he found the letther,” said Flynn seriously.

“But you mustn’t forget that he went to the very depths of deception when he disguised himself with that wig and whiskers,” was the scout’s comment. “There is something very singular about it all.”

“Shure, it’s too quare f’r words.”

The discovery of the skull and crossbones above the cabin door threw Cudjo into a new flutter of fear. He had never been able to forget the outlaw wearing a stick pin of that kind, who had knocked him down at the time of the railway holdup. Apparently members of that same band of desperadoes occupied the cabins here in the Golconda Cup.

“I wonder if they’re washin’ f’r gold?” said Flynn, once more studying the figures by the stream. “It’s gold I’m wantin’—gobs av it; an’ it makes me fingers itch to think that anny man can be takin’ it out that way, right befure me eyes, wid me here wantin’ my share, and that hilpless I can’t poke me nose out av the bushes. Musha! But it’s the loikes av that makes the hear-rt ache.”

Buffalo Bill brought out the stick pins he had kept in his possession, and looked at them. Their suggestiveness, in connection with that gruesome sign over the door of the cabin, and the letter written by Red Reynard, was impressive.

“Fr’m the looks av the cabins—the number av thim, I mane—the min huntin’ gold down here ar-re too manny f’r us,” said Flynn. “It was the gold and the iligant advinture that brought me. We’ve had the advinture, and I’m not denyin’ it was thrillin’ enough; and now we want the gold. How we’re to git it, though, I dunnaw. Thim divils have camped on the claim, and if we secure anny gold I’m thinkin’ we’ll have to crack heads f’r it.”

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