Yet it was true; he saw it plainly before he touched the already stiffening body. Merely by some freak of circumstances the young man had not been scalped.
“Devils’ work this!” muttered the scout. He glanced again over the field. There were many points that had at first escaped his attention. For instance, there were shod horses lying dead that had never been ridden by either cavalrymen or Indian!
“Aye, Indians did the deed, but there is a paleface hand behind it, and I mean to ferret out the fiend who inspired it,” said Buffalo Bill.
He dropped upon his knees again and felt of Danforth’s body. There, in a voice quivering with sorrow and passion, he exclaimed:
“Aye! here beside the body of the man whom I loved—who saved me from death—I swear revenge on the instigator of this crime!”
In his deep feeling he spoke these words aloud. A sound smote upon his ear. He sprang to his feet with a cry and turned as a harsh voice pealed out behind him:
“And I swear, Buffalo Bill, that you shall never keep the oath your lips have just uttered!”
CHAPTER XXVII.
“THE DEATH KILLER.”
Buffalo Bill had believed himself alone with the dead on this field of blood, and the voice fell like a knell upon his ear. For the moment he was half-unmanned. Then he wheeled completely to face the speaker.