Читать книгу Buffalo Bill's Weird Warning; Or, Dauntless Dell's Rival онлайн

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With that, Wild Bill stepped to the foot of the ore-dump and climbed carefully to the plank platform.

An empty ox-hide bucket stood on the platform, off to one side, but there was no windlass for hoisting the bucket, and there did not seem to be any ladders for getting down into the shaft. All this contributed still further to Wild Bill’s perplexity, and at the same time increased his determination to investigate.

But, if there were no ladders for getting into the mine, there was a rope. The upper end of the rope was made fast to the edge of the opening in the middle of the platform.

The Laramie man peered down into the shaft. The blackness was intense, and he could see nothing, not even the gleam of a candle.

“Can’t tell whether the shaft is fifty feet deep or five hundred,” he muttered, “but it’s a cinch that none of the men who came here on those five horses are anywheres around the foot of the shaft. If they were, they’d jump a piece of lead at me. With my head over the hole, like this, I’m a good target. Now to go down.”