CHAPTER VIII.

STRANGE DISAPPEARANCES.

As if he knew he would be followed, the man who had borne off the body had struck rocky ground soon, so completely breaking his trail that to pursue it promised to be a work of great difficulty.

Buffalo Bill stopped.

“I don’t think I care to go farther just now,” he said. “Though, later, I want to come here and cipher this thing out. I’m going back to Blossom Range.”

“Waugh!” the trapper objected. “What fer? This hyar is ther place fer work ter be done right now.”

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” said Buffalo Bill, thoughtfully; “I’ll leave you and the baron to claw the tangles out of this thing; and I’ll try to join you before long. As you go along break a bush now and then, so that when I return I’ll have no trouble in finding you.”

“But what ye goin’ back fer?” Nomad asked, impatiently.

It seemed to him that to pick up the lost trail was the most important thing at the moment; at any rate, he could think of nothing more promising.

Because of the listening ears turned toward him, Buffalo Bill did not care to acquaint the trapper with the thoughts in his mind.

So he made a lame excuse, about having forgotten something; and turned about, leaving the trapper and the baron to go on alone; as all of the town men turned back when Cody did.

“You can dig out that trail, Nomad, if any one on earth can,” he told the trapper. “So just hang to it, you and the baron--unless he wants to go back with me! When I return, I shall come with the expectation of finding that you have dug out something worth while.”

But the baron had no wish to return to Blossom Range at that time; it was his idea that the blind trail which Nomad was to try to spell out offered worlds of excitement, of the most surprising kind.

When Buffalo Bill reached Blossom Range, he took the officer and the coroner aside, after dismissing the other men.

“Perhaps you know all about those men who have been with you, and that they’re to be trusted,” he explained; “but I don’t know any of them, and the faces of one or two didn’t strike me favorably. What I want to do now is to have you go with me to the Casino and arrest there a woman called Vera Bright; she is with the show company that has been giving performances in the Casino the past week. After that, I shall ask you to go with me to Juniper Joe’s and place Juniper Joe and his wife under arrest.”

The officer and coroner stared at him.

“Not Juniper Joe!” gasped the officer.

“None other. If I am making a mistake, I will stand responsible for it. The man who was slain out there was the same that Juniper Joe tried to kill the night of his wedding; and this woman, Vera Bright, was with the murdered man shortly before daylight this morning, as I know through the testimony of the German, who was watching the Casino at that time. He heard them quarreling. In addition, Mrs. Juniper Joe made that woman a visit yesterday.”

“If you back the thing, I’ll make the arrests,” said the officer, but reluctantly.

“I will back you!” the scout told him. “Or, if you don’t want to do it, I will make the arrests myself; yet I should prefer to have you to do that part of the work.”

He did not think it wise, being still rather hazy about some points himself, to tell these men all his conclusions; he preferred to let events speak for themselves.

When they got down to the Casino and called for Miss Vera Bright, they were informed that she was not there; that, in fact, she had left Blossom Range that morning, on the stage for Calumet Springs.

“Let me see the manager of the show,” Buffalo Bill requested.

The manager came down--a pale, blond, young fellow--and began to answer Buffalo Bill’s questions.

“I didn’t know she was going,” he declared; “and none of the company