CHAPTER XIX.

THE MYSTERY OF THE GULCH.

“Waugh! What is this hyar percession, anyhow--er march ter ther grave o’ ther red man’s granddad, or er Quaker meetin’?”

Old Nomad had broken the stillness after a long silence as the scout and his pards made their way south after crossing the Yellowstone.

“I say, Buffler, hain’t sumpin ’bout due ter drap? Ef this hyar Hide-rack ’u’d tumble down an’ sling me erbout four rod I’d git up feelin’ better. I tells ye, this hyar lack ov ’citement’s gittin’ on my nerves purty nigh orful.”

The scout had been riding silently, making a careful study of his surroundings, and with the instinct of his calling calculating on the possibilities of this wild country as the site of a great battle.

Little Cayuse was in the lead, following readily the trail left by Price and Ike in their flight.

“I’ve been thinking,” began the scout quietly, pulling Bear Paw down to a walk and giving all the animals an opportunity to puff, “that perhaps within the next few hours we will find excitement enough to satisfy even your cravings, Nick.”

“Thet’s ther tork, Buffler! Hyar’s yer mutton when yer needs timber fer sumpin ter----”

Nomad stopped suddenly, having been interrupted by a strange happening. They were now in a vast tract of broken, well-nigh verdureless ridges, with here and there stretches of sage brush and occasionally clumps of stunted cottonwood or willow in the low places between.

Cayuse’s pinto had gained some distance on the other horses, and, as the trim little Piute’s feather was disappearing beyond a ridgetop, his companions saw his arms suddenly thrown above his head, and instantly there came a heavy report, accompanied by shaking of the ground, and a cloud of smoke arose above the crest of the hill.

“Thunder, Buffler! Ther papoose is done for!” yelled Nomad, driving the spurs to Hide-rack’s flanks, and dashing ahead.

“Look out, Nick!” cried Hickok, sending his own steed to the left sharply to reconnoitre the position, as Buffalo Bill had instantly galloped away to the right.

If Nomad heard he did not heed, but, drawing his revolver, he dashed up the ridge and over the crest at whirlwind speed. But the trapper had barely reached the highest point of the hill than there came the report of two rifles, almost together, and the scout and Hickok saw the brave old Nomad reel in the saddle for a moment, then throw up his revolver, and bang! bang! bang! as he plunged from sight down the other side.

Swinging into the gully between the ridges from different directions, Buffalo Bill and the Laramie man were puzzled by the fact that neither a man nor a horse were in sight.

They rode toward each other, half expecting momentarily to discover fragments of the bodies of Little Cayuse and Navi. Where old Nomad had faded to was a problem beyond solution at present, for he had disappeared as if he had dropped from the face of the earth. The sounds of firing had ceased, and not even distant hoofbeats could be heard.

They rode toward each other rapidly, determined to reach some solution of the mystery, even at the expense of disappearing as suddenly as their pards had done.

When barely ten rods separated them, both Buffalo Bill and the Laramie man discovered that the character of the geological structure had changed suddenly. Where the ridges they had crossed in the last half day’s travel had run in a general east-and-west direction, here they were confronted by a series running the other way and, as it were, becoming a part of the first formation, with outcroppings of granite in the higher land to the south of them.

Two of these north-and-south ridges approached and butted into the long, high mound they had crossed, and between them was a narrow and rapidly falling cañon running away to the south, its walls ever growing higher and more rugged and broken by sharp angles of solid rock. The bottom seemed to be a bed of sand that had washed in from the slopes above.

The first drop to the bed of the cañon was ten or twelve feet, and there the sand plainly showed where horses and men had plunged into it and then floundered out and gone on.

Wild Bill was about to plunge his horse over the brink in pursuit of his missing pards, when Buffalo Bill held up a warning hand.

“One moment, Hickok,” he said. “Do you see where the trail was mined at the head of the little cañon?”

“Sure, and both Cayuse and Nomad went over the brink here.”

“Yes, but they were not killed, or, at least, if they were, they and their horses were dragged away in short order. Now, figuring that they are both alive and in their right minds, they are all the force necessary to follow directly after these villains. There must be an outlet to this cañon somewhere, and when these fellows flow out on the plains or into the bottom lands of some river they are likely to turn to right or left in their flight.”

“I think I see your plan, pard,” said Hickok. “You think it best for us to scout along the rim on either side?”

“Precisely.”

“All right; here goes,” and the Laramie man dashed away along what was then sometimes called a “hog-back,” or long, low ridge of land.

The scout galloped down on his side, and the novel chase was on.

Occasionally the scout or Hickok rode up to the edge of the cañon and peered into it, hoping to catch a glimpse of their pards or the fugitives.

For miles a stern test of the speed of their weary horses was made, but they had not discovered hair or hoof of the four men and four horses they believed were galloping down the course of the dry gorge.

The only time lost was the occasional trip of one or the other to the rim of the gorge to glance along its bed.

At sunset they seemed to have come out on a height of land which fell off rapidly into a beautiful valley.

Tired horses plunged down the receding slopes of the cañon’s sides, and soon Buffalo Bill and his pard sat with the noses of their mounts together.

They had bounded the pathway down which the fugitives and their own pards had fled. And over the green and smiling grazing lands to the southeast of them for miles there was not a moving thing the size of a coyote.

The scout slipped from his saddle and walked up the gorge for a few rods.

Then he returned and said:

“They have not passed out of here.”

Hickok whistled. “What do you make of that?” he asked.

“Well, they had not more than five or eight minutes’ start of us, and we have ridden hard; we may have gained something on them in two hours’ riding.”

“Correct. Suppose we ride up the cañon a piece, and then dismount, and give the horses a chance to blow?”

“It’s a good notion, Hickok. I think we have those fellows jugged. I am confident if Nick and Cayuse are not too badly wounded that Price and his man will never get by them. I should sooner think they would find some favorable angle in the gorge where they are screened by the rocks and make a stand, believing we are all behind them in the cañon.”

“As we would have been if it hadn’t been for the shrewd head of one W. F. Cody, in the service of Uncle Sam.”

The scout gave no heed to the praise of his pard, but rode up the cañon, studying carefully the odd formation and the opportunities for scaling the sides.

“Do you remember our little climb in the cañon behind Fremont’s Peak?” he asked of the Laramie man.

“Do I remember it? Why don’t you ask me if I remember those lizards and the hair-raising yell of the crazy man in the cave? I wonder if you remember the greaser who knocked you over with a bullet and then jumped into a hole a thousand feet deep? I think I do remember some things about that trip, pard, and they make me shudder every time they come to mind--especially those crawly things and about ten million bats.”

“Here’s a good place to halt,” said the scout. “We are hidden here from a straight half mile beyond, and can rest, and eat a bite, and perhaps smoke a whiff, while the game possibly walks into our trap.”

Darkness dropped like a vast filmy blanket, and the silent watchers heard only the impatient movements of the horses, anxious to get back to the slope below the cañon’s outlet, where the grass looked green and inviting. At last the scout said:

“I fear, Hickok, that our plans have slipped up somewhere. I think it would be well for one of us to take the horses back to the grazing lands and the other stroll up the cañon to see what has become of our pards. Perhaps they were hurt worse than it seemed.”

“That is the way I look at it, pard, and the one who goes with the horses ought to remain near enough to the cañon to keep informed as to who goes and comes.”

“Very well, you look out for the horses, and I’ll see if I can discover what has become of our pards.”

Wild Bill Hickok soon had the horses hitched out where they could graze upon the green, moist grass, and then moved back where he could both hear the feeding animals and any man or horse that should pass out of the mouth of the cañon.

The scout had moved away in the darkness up the soft bed of sand and gravel, on the alert every instant for any sound of those whom he had expected to come that way. But he was destined to be deeply disappointed and mystified, for the light of another day revealed a state of affairs wholly surprising.