All that kept him from going over the edge with Dell and dropping to the depths of the gulch was his hold on the small tree which grew out of the rock crevices.
Buffalo Bill’s faculties were all taken up with the predicament that immediately faced himself and Dell. Suddenly his eyes, close to the ground, turned up the trail. He saw two painted forms creeping down relentlessly upon him and the girl.
Had those redskins, at that moment, stood over the scout with uplifted knives, he could not have made the slightest move in his own defense.
The scout turned his eyes away from the creeping savages with a stifled groan. Not a sound came from the form that hung below the brink. What the girl’s thoughts must have been, providing she retained the full use of her faculties, may readily be imagined.
The terrific strain was as trying to Dauntless Dell as it was to the iron muscles of Buffalo Bill. The Indians were coming; and where was Nomad?
Buffalo Bill had been so wrapped up in his own life-and-death struggle at the cliff’s edge that, for a time, he had ceased to think of Nomad. Abruptly, thoughts of the old trapper darted through the scout’s brain.
“Nick!” he shouted, his voice hoarse and muffled by its proximity to the ground.
There was no answer from Nomad. After all, it must have been a dream—the scout’s imagining he had heard his pard’s voice in warning.
“Buffalo Bill!”
It was Dell’s voice, floating upward front the chasm.