“Here is the trail coming out, and there were a score of them.”
The sergeant, at the call of Buffalo Bill, hastened to where he stood. He was passing around the descent to the river between the two ridges, and had found a trail.
Reaching the spot, the trail was there, made by all of two dozen horses, they decided after an examination.
“It goes straight down the ravine to the river, and was, as you said, the landing when they rode in from the bar.”
“Yes, sergeant.
“We will leave the boys here and go on to that break up yonder, for there is where I feel sure they must cross, and, if my memory serves me right, there is no other for many a long mile above.”
Calling to the scouts to halt there where they were, Buffalo Bill and the sergeant pushed rapidly on to the break in the bank, nearly a mile above.
They reached it just as the sun touched the horizon, and a glance showed that it was a ravine like the one below, narrow, rocky, and steep.
But from that point a descent into the river could rapidly be made, and as the stream had a bend there, a swim would carry them across for a landing on the sand bar below.
Going around to the head of the ravine, Buffalo Bill and the sergeant came to a halt, as though they had been shot at.