Smoke ascended in thin columns out of that deep hole, and though from where they were the hole seemed small, Buffalo Bill saw that really it was very large, covering a space of a mile or more in its widest diameter.
He drew rein involuntarily in the mouth of the notch, and sat looking off at that hole and the smoke columns mounting out of it into the turquoise-blue sky. One of the columns was like mist, and much larger than the others.
“Waugh!” ejaculated Nomad, drawing Hide-rack back by a jerk on the rein. “I been lookin’ fer ther Pit, and thar she is.”
Buffalo Bill took out his field glasses, screwed them into focus, took a long look, and passed them silently to Wild Bill.
The Indians stood wide-eyed and staring.
Little Cayuse swung his hand through the air, making that egg-shaped circle; it was his prayer to the Indian spirits to give him “life,” in this dire emergency, instead of “death.”
As they gazed at the queer valley and queer hole a score or more of mounted Indians bobbed into sight and swooped down on an object that had not yet attracted attention.
The Indians were so near the end of the notch that their painted bodies and faces, and their singular ornaments, could be seen; likewise the tuft of red feathers which each wore in his hair. And their yells reached the group in the notch.
The Indians swung ropes, presumably of rawhide, and cast them at the object, which apparently had been crouching on the ground beside a rock.
The object rose into full view, and was seen to be a man.