When Little Cayuse was halfway down, the three Apaches began to follow him, coming along in single file.
“Just let them alone—pay no attention to them,” Buffalo Bill advised Hickok. “They’re no good right now, but we can work this thing out without them, and they’ll trail along behind us rather than be left.”
Nomad was silent, getting out the food and the cooking vessels; but what the scout stated was not lost on him.
“You’re goin’ ter try to foller thet ole Scar Head, Buffler?” he asked at length.
“We don’t intend to trouble ourselves in the least about him, Nomad,” was the reply. “We brought him along for a guide, as he knows more about this section than any of us; but as he seems to have deserted us, we’ll just go on without him, and let him work out his own salvation. We’re no worse off than if we hadn’t started with him.”
Nomad shook his head in vigorous dissent.
“A heap wuss off!” he asserted.
“That’s as one looks at it, perhaps,” said the scout. He would not argue the matter with his trapper pard.
“Yer ain’t any idee why he done it?”
“No.”