“I never knew Buffalo Bill forget to pay a debt, either to a friend or an enemy,” said Wild Bill. “But we are losing time. Suppose I take the scouts and get along on the trail? I don’t believe there are more of those rascals than we can handle if we should chance to come up with them.”
“I’ll join you with the rest of our fellows, and then the captain and the troopers can come along at their leisure,” said Buffalo Bill.
“We had better all try to keep together,” suggested the captain. “They cannot have much start, and we surely can overtake them.”
“We’ll do it!” said Buffalo Bill, with grim determination; “or there’s one of us here who’ll break his neck trying! If young Mainwaring has been lost or killed I won’t be able to forgive myself easily for letting him go off in that way, with only Norfolk Ben to accompany him. I made a serious error in judgment in not crediting what he said about seeing the girls.”
This was a thing which the border king very seldom had occasion to confess, but, like most men who are not in the habit of making mistakes, he was perfectly ready to admit them when he did.
The captain now sent back orders for the troops to ride around to where the trail could be taken, and then went with Buffalo Bill to the point, guided by Wild Bill.
Sure enough there were tracks showing where a large band of horses had stood for some time, for the ground was all trodden up, and then on the thus softened ground the tracks of men could be seen.
Among these the keen eye of Buffalo Bill soon detected the boot marks made by Mainwaring, the brogan tracks of Ben, and in one place the small impressions left by the girls’ feet.
“We’re surely on their trail now,” he said, when he made this last discovery.
By the time all the horses had been brought up from the place where they had been left at the foot of the cliff the troop, with the rest of the scouts, were there.