When Buffalo Bill demanded the surrender of the white man, Iron Bow told him no white man was there.
“You will let us look for him?” said the scout.
Iron Bow declared that the thing would be an outrage, but if the white wanted to look they could do so.
As well as they could, Buffalo Bill and his companions searched through the Ute village; but they did not find Benson.
“I suppose he suspected we would come here the first thing, and so kept away,” was the scout’s conjecture.
“Trust Benson for a long head,” said Shepard. “He’s the slipperiest rascal in the West.”
It had been said of Tim Benson more than once.
Iron Bow’s warriors became ugly and truculent before the white men left the village, so that it seemed a longer stay might have brought about a collision.
“Oh, they needn’t howl so,” said the sheriff, when the village was left behind; “everybody knows that they hide all sorts of jailbirds, if only the said jailbirds can bring along a good supply of whisky and blankets, and amm’nition, an’ the like o’ that. Some o’ these times I’m goin’ to get a line on that work, and lug old Iron Bow down to jail fer it.”