About a quarter of a mile from the camp the three scouts drew rein and dismounted, Buffalo Bill and Nick Wharton leaving their horses in charge of Hickok.
“Don’t try to cut up the hull gang o’ them Injuns,” Wild Bill said, as his two friends strode off into the darkness toward the camp fires that twinkled ahead of them.
CHAPTER VI.
THE RENEGADE.
As Buffalo Bill and Nick Wharton approached the first of the camp fires, they saw that the Indians were dancing the Sioux ghost dance around it, while at the next fire several of the Cheyennes were indulging in their own tribal war dance.
Several sentinels had been placed around the camp, but, by careful scouting and judiciously taking advantage of cover, the two comrades managed to dodge them and get inside the cordon.
When they had accomplished this feat, Buffalo Bill uttered a sigh of relief. They were now fairly safe, unless they were observed by some of the braves around the fire. In that event, the sentries were likely to cut off their retreat, unless it were made too rapidly to give them time to take up the alarm.
Nothing was going on around the first two fires except the dancing, which both Buffalo Bill and Wharton had seen many a time before.
Taking shelter behind a clump of bushes, they crawled forward until they were right in the center of the camp, and opposite the largest of the bivouac fires.