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

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“Wasn’t you talkin’ with a feller in the office afore ye got ter talkin’ with Wild Bill?” put in Spangler.

“That was Clancy,” said Smith.

“Yep,” returned Spangler, with a shake of his fat sides, “I know him, all right; and”—here Spangler gave the scout a significant glance—“Clancy ain’t got none too good a repertation in this camp.”

“You surprise me!” exclaimed J. Algernon Smith.

The fellow’s actions were ingenuous. He talked and acted like an Easterner, but he looked like a Westerner, for all that.

“You understand, Mr. Smith,” pursued the scout, with the glint in his eyes that had taken the nerve of many a wily schemer, “that Wild Bill is my friend, and that I am anxious about him. If he has met with foul play, as you just suggested, I shall have something to say to the scoundrels back of it—later. Just now, though, I want all the information I can get. You will pardon me if I ask you what this Clancy had to say to you.”

Smith stiffened.

“What Clancy had to say, Buffalo Bill,” he replied, “is, of course, my own business. Nevertheless, under the circumstances, I recognize your right to press inquiries. If you will step aside with me, I will explain.”