“He’s gone farther than that!” exclaimed Captain Keyes, shaking his head. “What say, Texas Jack?”
Omohondreau, who knew of Buffalo Bill’s promise to the White Antelope, nodded.
“He’s gone to the Injun camp,” said the brother scout, “and it’s a toss-up if it isn’t ‘good-by, Bill Cody!’ for good and all!”
CHAPTER XXXIII.
TRACKING THE MAD HUNTER.
After a night of uneasy repose, in which the thoughts engendered by his first sight of the Mad Hunter’s face had ridden him like a nightmare, Buffalo Bill was determined to make a thorough search for the maniac. Had he not believed the evening before that the man was likely to remain unconscious until roused by the efforts of the surgeon, he would have begged Captain Keyes to let him stay by the maniac until help could come. He was deeply disappointed when he and Jack Omohondreau could not find the giant.
In the morning he had searched patiently, struck the trail of the madman, and, as the sergeant reported, had started at once to follow and run the maniac down. He had brought his horse, and having left the soldiers, he mounted Chief and followed the big footprints of the wild man at a round trot for some distance.
How seriously the man was wounded, Cody did not know; but his quarry did not seem to try to hide his trail. Straight along the ridge it led, then down into the little valley the scout had ridden across the night before, and so up the range of hills on the other side. Something about the walking of the big man puzzled the scout greatly, and suddenly Buffalo Bill spurred his horse to the summit of a high hill, that he might take a survey of the country over which it seemed the madman might pass.
The soldiers were under way now, and, first of all, Cody saw them traversing a defile at one side, up which they had come from the bivouac of the past night. A steep bluff towered beside them where they were then marching as Buffalo Bill came out upon the back-bone of the range.
The course he had taken in following the madman’s trail had brought the scout out ahead of the marching column. But it was not upon them that his gaze became fastened. Instead, a single moving object upon the summit of the bluff in the shadow of which the soldiers marched held his attention. This object was more than a mile ahead of the soldiery, and would never be noticed from the valley below.