“We exchanged confidences,” proceeded Henson, “and from that time on have been comrades. In the hills two days later we came upon a wounded Mexican. He had been shot by Raven Feather’s Indians and left for dead. Why they did not scalp him is a mystery.”
“No mystery at all,” grunted Wild Bill. “He was bald-headed.”
“So he was,” admitted Henson soberly, while the others laughed. “That makes a difference, I suppose?”
“I should say it did,” declared Buffalo Bill. “It’s the hair the savages want.”
“Well, I am glad the Mexican was not scalped, for the operation might have ended his life, and we would not have learned then what the Navahos were up to.
“The Mexican was able to talk, and he told us that he had overheard a conversation between Raven Feather and a white man, who answered the description of Rixton Holmes. A girl was to be abducted, and her protector, Buffalo Bill, was to be killed. The girl and you, Mr. Cody, had gone to a ranch in the hills, a day’s journey from the spot. While the conversation was going on another white man appeared, and presently the two whites went off together. They were mounted and rode westward. The second man was Tom Darke, for the Mexican heard him called by that name.
“Afterward, while crawling away from the Indian camp, the Mexican was seen and fired upon. He lay as if dead, and had been there on the ground for two days. Death came while he was talking to us. We rode on, and—and here we are.”
“Now, Hickok, what have you to say?” asked Buffalo Bill, as Henson finished his explanation.
“Mighty little, old man. After we left the Mexican we struck an Indian trail, and I parted company with Mr. Henson to do a little scouting. I followed the trail to the Indian village, and learned that there had been a fight, and that Raven Feather had captured a white girl. The chief was not in the village, but was chasing a white man who had played traitor.
“I returned to my friend here, and we concluded to ride on to the flat and learn how things were there before undertaking a campaign against the reds. You see, Cody, I was a little anxious about you. I did not know what had actually happened up here; and again, there was that matter of Tom Darke.”