“Let me shoot him, the scoundrel!” begged Clayton. “I can’t stand it any longer.” Instead, Buffalo Bill lifted his voice. “Hello, there!” he called. Black John wheeled as if on a pivot. He looked about, and saw no one. “We’ve got you covered with our revolvers,” were the next words he heard. “If you don’t throw up your hands and surrender, down you go.” Black John did not surrender; he gave a jump for the cave, pulling the girl backward by the hair, so that she fell in the very entrance, and was pulled in by him, out of sight. CHAPTER XLVII. AT BAY--AT PEACE. Silence reigned after that until Buffalo Bill spoke again, announcing to Black John that he was cornered, and demanding his surrender. “Come and git me!” yelled the desperate man. “But recklect when you do I’ll shoot the girl.” “We want to have a talk with you,” said Buffalo Bill. “We’ve got a proposition to make to you. Surrender the girl unharmed, and we’ll spare your life.” When there was no answer to this, they began to crawl up the slope, taking Toby Sam with them. “We’ve got a friend of yours here,” called Buffalo Bill. “We’ll release him, and let him come in and tell you the conditions here, so that you’ll know how foolish it is for you to try to hold out against us.” “No--no!” Toby Sam gurgled; “he’ll shoot me! He’ll think I’ve turned ag’inst him; he’ll think I took the emeralds; he’ll think----” He twisted out of the way of Buffalo Bill, whose intention of sending him to the cave he feared, and leaping up, he tried to run. It was a foolish and fatal movement. Black John’s revolver cracked, and Toby Sam fell with its bullet in his head, being dead as he struck the ground. Now at bay, Black John was desperate and murderous. He had thought the man he shot at was one of Buffalo Bill’s force. Silence followed the fall of Toby Sam’s body, and it lay on the rocks, the face, ghastly in death, turned skyward. There was a movement in the cave; the next moment Lena Forest appeared. Her hands and feet were bound, but she stood erect, while behind her, using her as a shield, Black John crouched, like a desperate villain and craven. “Remember that I’m keepin’ her in front of me here in the mouth of this cave,” he shouted, “and if you shoot at me the chances aire you’ll hit her. Recklect it!” Buffalo Bill’s revolver was leveled, seemingly on the girl. The next moment its report rang out, and the body of the man behind the girl slipped downward, and then fell, sprawling out in the cavern entrance. It was a shot such as only Buffalo Bill or Pawnee Bill could have made.