Buffalo Bill's Big Surprise; Or, The Biggest Stampede on RecordIngraham, Prentiss
General
Buffalo Bill's Big Surprise; Or, The Biggest Stampede on Record
Ingraham, Prentiss
Buffalo Bill, 1846-1917 -- Fiction; Dime novels
Whoever it had been the chief had fired at, could only have entered
by that single door, as far as could be seen.
The rear window was opened then, and showed that it had been closed
for a long time. So did the wide front doors, which filled almost the
other end of the corridor. But the other doors, save that one through
which Buffalo Bill had entered, showed plainly that they had not been
opened for a long while.
That door the chief himself had opened from within the wing, and
yet the lion had been found in the corridor, as also had the white
apparition, whatever it was.
“Well, if a mountain lion could get in here, a ghost ought to. The
lion was certainly not a specter brute, as I have proof,” said the
chief, with a grim smile. “We will now look over the rest of the
building.”
And they did so, going into each wing, the chapel, and the basement
in the solid rock beneath it, the second story, and up to the tower.
This done, and finding nothing more than that it had been the haunt
of owls and bats, the party blew out their lanterns and returned to
the wing where their comrades had been hard at work.
With water from the stream, and brooms, they had cleaned up the rooms
well, a fire had been built in the large open chimney, the tables got
out, chairs set around, the cooking utensils put in the fireplace,
the bedding placed in the sleeping rooms, and in little more than
three hours the hacienda, in that wing at least, presented a very
comfortable appearance.
Then the wagon was returned to the two waiting Mexicans, and the
broken-down plaza entrance was repaired, as it was decided best, for
a few nights at least, to drive the horses and cattle into the walled
grounds about the hacienda, so that they would begin to understand
that it was home.
Just before sunset the stock was driven up, and the gateway having
been finished, so as to make it strong again, it was closed for the
night, and the scouts went to get supper.
Two guards were appointed for the night, one in the hacienda, one at
the entrance to the grounds, and Buffalo Bill selected men whom he
knew were not of a superstitious turn of mind, remarking to Texas
Jack:
“If we put on a man who was looking for ghosts, this is the very
place to find them, and he would be alarming us constantly with
challenges of apparitions, so I just put on men who have no fear of
the dead.”
“You are right, for though there is not a man in the band who would
not fight big odds if he knew he was facing men, several of the
boys would skip at the sight of anything in this ruin they did not
understand. I am sorry that you told them the ghost story.”
“No, it was best, for if this hacienda is the haunt of outlaws as I
believe it has been, it will be by springing the supernatural upon
us, that they will endeavor to frighten us away.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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