Sleep was out of the question. The trail was followed at night, though the progress was necessarily slow. In the hills, where there was but one way for a horse to take, they could make better time.
It was daylight when they halted in a cañon, through which flowed a deep and rapid stream of water.
They had breakfast, attended to the wants of their ponies, and then rode on.
“Do you think Miss Wilton remained long in her deathlike sleep?” asked Carl Henson of Buffalo Bill, as the friends were riding, single file, up the steep side of the mountain.
“If she revived before this, Holmes would have found her more troublesome on his hands than an elephant would have been. He’ll not try to get her out of her sleep.”
“But the sleep must some time come to an end. When will that be? Have you any idea?”
His anxiety was so marked that Wild Bill hastened to say: “That woman in St. Louis stayed dead twenty-four hours. It will take Holmes more than a day to get clear of these hills. We’ll catch him before he reaches the plains.”
Just before noon Bart Angell, who was riding ahead, and had just rounded a sharp turn in the trail, uttered a shout that brought his companions quickly to the spot where he had reined up.
Before him in the road lay the dead body of an Indian pony.
It was a pinto, and it had been shot in the head.