“It’s dangerous to go over there yet,” said Buffalo Bill.
“You can bet it is. But he reckoned he’d rather go than meet us closer to. The old scoundrel! I’ve heard of his tricks and deviltry, but I never happened to run up against him before.”
“I hope I never will again,” said Cody devoutly.
But he was doomed to meet the Mad Hunter again, and to learn that about him that caused the Border King much sorrow of spirit.
The scouts remained on the island during the night, and late the next day started out to find their mounts. There was a swamp several miles away, and, knowing well the keen instinct of their horses, the scouts went to it, and in less than twenty-four hours found both Chief and the other, much mud-bespattered, but in good condition. And their arms, though somewhat rusted, were safe.
The forest fire had burned over a large tract of country, had driven away the game, and had cleared the territory of Indians. So the scouts separated to follow the trails of different bands of reds and spot their new villages. Their duty was to find and report upon every new encampment of the redskins, that the department might keep tabs on the movements of the savages.
Cody kept his eyes open for traces of the bandits, but during the following week learned nothing of the movements of Boyd Bennett and his gang.
He was thinking of going to a certain rendezvous where he expected to join Texas Jack, when he came suddenly upon a spectacle in a little valley that brought him up standing. So appalling—and unexpected—was the scene that it seemed for the moment as though his heart stopped beating!
Over a score of figures in blue lay in the little cup-shaped coulée, where they had fallen battling for life!
There they lay, partly stripped of their uniforms in some cases, robbed of their weapons, and lying amid their foes, hideous, painted savages, whom their red companions, in their haste to fly from the fearful scene, had not borne off to burial. Yet they had found time to tear the scalp-lock from the head of each white man.