The sun was shining in through the open door when a voice, the voice of a man, aroused her.
She got up, wild-eyed, her dress disheveled, her face tear-stained.
The man was Pawnee Bill, whom she had seen and talked with in the town. He had ridden out, as he had promised, leaving the town long before dawn, and he had seen in the trail the dead body of John Forest, mute witness of the vengeance of Crazy Snake, the Blackfoot. The famous scout soon saw that the girl was on the verge of a collapse from hysteria and overwrought nerves. She screamed when she beheld him, ran toward him with outstretched hands, and in wild phrases began to tell him of what had occurred.
“My dear girl,” he said, “you do not need to tell me, for I have seen. But let me urge you to try to control yourself. I shall escort you back to the town, and then——”
“But my father!” she wailed hysterically.
“All that can be done for him now will be done, let me assure you.”
The kind-hearted scout was really at a loss what to say and do in this dire emergency, but he induced her to lie down again on the bed; and then he went outside, thinking to get a spade and bury the body of John Forest.
As he did so, he beheld two men coming along the trail. He stared, then recognized them, and ran toward them, calling their names.
They were Buffalo Bill and old Nick Nomad.
It was the family of John Forest that Buffalo Bill had been anxious to warn against the dangers of the Blackfeet.