But Nomad sprang down to the aid of the scout; when together they pulled the body out of the sand. It had been doubled and crumpled up in the hole, was fully dressed, and the sand had been simply pushed in on it and trampled down.
Even Buffalo Bill gasped in surprise when the face of the dead man was seen.
For it was the face of Jackson Dane!
“Waugh! Er, waugh!” Nomad was whooping. “I’m er Piegan, ef——”
“Well, it knocks all our theories on the head,” said the scout, breaking in on Nomad’s war-dance accompaniment.
“Idt iss make me veel like I am grazy!” cried the baron, staring goggle-eyed.
The dead man, having been lifted out of the hole, was laid gently on the ground.
Then it was seen that Dane had been shot through the body.
“Probably killed instantly,” was the scout’s conclusion, when he saw the character of the wound. “Nomad, you’d better pike back to town and send officers out to take charge of this. It will be impossible to keep the thing still, I suppose; and I don’t know that there is really any need of it.”