The boomer read the note with interest. Then he hastily scribbled off the answer:
"Have read the note that was left. Am following Yellow Elk, who stole my mare and has Jack Rasco's niece a captive. Yellow Elk is bound for some cave in the mountains.
PAWNEE BROWN."
The answer finished, the boomer placed it in the hole, let back the flat rock and wrote on the blaze of the tree, under Dan Gilbert's initials:
P. B.
CHAPTER XII.
YELLOW ELK.
The writing of the answer to Gilbert's communication had taken several minutes, and now Yellow Elk was entirely out of sight. But Pawnee Brown was certain of the trail the Indian had taken, and by a little faster riding soon brought the rascal again into view.
Yellow Elk was now descending into a valley bound on the north by a rolling hill and on the south by a cliff varying from twenty to forty feet in height. Even at a distance Pawnee Brown could see that the Indian was having considerable trouble with Nellie Winthrop, who felt now assured that her first suspicions were correct and that Yellow Elk had taken her far from the boomers' camp.