“I ain’t believin’ in no devil bird,” expostulated the trapper; “but yer heerd yerself about thet eagle, how it grupped Quicksilver John in ther slack o’ his coat, and jest lifted him gentle down off ther clift inter ther town. Yer heerd thet.”
“But didn’t believe it.”
“Waugh! I’m believin’ it, now.”
Buffalo Bill was still talking to Little Cayuse and his Apaches.
“Stay behind, then,” he said at length, losing his patience at last; “we can get along without you! There’s the trail straight behind us, to the town of Skyline; take it, and get back there as quick as you can.”
He rode on, and, Wild Bill following, Nomad could not but do the same, if he did not want to hang back with the shrinking Indians.
Buffalo Bill did not glance back, but he had not ridden far when the sounds he heard told him that Little Cayuse and his Apaches were following. Their fears would not let them retreat alone; they wanted the protection of the white men.
Rounding some ridges in the sunburned valley, where a strange mist had seemed to rise, they came upon a number of bubbling mud springs, which emitted, with the ocherish mud, a fetid odor.
Close by these springs, and running off toward the barren flanks of the mountains, were a petrified forest of considerable size, but the trees were prostrate, and some of the trunks and branches were broken.
There were more of these mud springs, some with bases of red, where the overflowing mud, impregnated with that color, had built up fantastic formations.