“Heavens!” he said, “that woman’s got a tongue worse than a whip! She’ll kill me. I did marry her, but that tongue made me mighty sick of my bargain, and I left her. She’s sore over that, and she----” He stopped as if disturbed by the angry outcries of Pizen Jane, but it was really because he realized that he might talk too much himself. CHAPTER X. MOTHER AND SON. Buffalo Bill was not captured by Snaky Pete’s road agents. The escape of the dreaded scout annoyed them. They feared him, and knowledge that he was in that region disconcerted and troubled them greatly. They returned to the pursuit after daylight, but had no better success, and at length gave over the attempt to capture the elusive scout. When Snaky Pete and his band, with their woman prisoner, reached the camp at Poplar Bluffs, Tom Molloy and Pool Clayton, with their strife and bickering, had disrupted the band left there, and were on the point of settling the trouble by a free-for-all fight. “You’ll be int’rested in some one there,” Snaky Pete had said to Pizen Jane. That she was interested was proved by the outcry she made as her eyes fell on Pool Clayton. “So you’re here, Bruce, jes’ as I expected to find ye?” she sputtered. “Right here with these pizen skunks, after you writ to me that you had fell into the hands of a fake Buffler Bill, who was a road agent, and that he was holdin’ you a pris’ner, and was likely to murder ye! What did you mean by writin’ that pack o’ lies to yer own mother?” Pool Clayton’s face grew as red as a beet. He looked at Snaky Pete and the road agents, and then back at the woman who had so suddenly announced that he was her son. On the ground lay the prisoner, Nick Nomad, who had a twinkle in his eyes now. “What did ye mean?” she screamed at Pool Clayton. “Here I find this pizen scamp that used to call hisself my husband, and with him I find you! Both o’ ye road agents--the man that was my husband and the boy that was my son!” Pizen Jane’s voice broke in a sort of pitiful wail, and Nomad saw the tears come into her eyes. Pool Clayton looked confused and sheepish; Snaky Pete looked angry and humiliated. “Here, shut up yer yawp!” Snaky Pete shouted to her. “You’re a nuisance; do ye know it?” “A nuisance is a good sight more of a credit to ther community than a murderous wretch like you!” she retorted. “Shut up yer own yawp! The Lord gimme my tongue, and I’ve a right to use it, and I’m goin’ to.” She turned again to Pool Clayton. “I’m ashamed of ye!” she said. “Why did you write me sich a pack o’ lies?” “Just to make you think I--I was killed, or would be,” he admitted. “You didn’t want me to know that you had turned road agent. You didn’t want me to know that you’d j’ined forces with that measly runt there that I heard one of these men call Snaky Pete. Well, he _is_ snaky, and he’s worse’n snaky.” Then her voice and manner changed.