“The girl is gone,” said the scout. “I found her absent from the house, and I fail to see her anywhere.” He looked at Pawnee Bill earnestly. “Was her mind so affected, do you think, that she would slip out of this back door and into the hills, there?” he asked. “If not——”
“What?” said Pawnee Bill.
Buffalo Bill pointed to the moccasin track.
“That is suggestive, if it is new; but it’s hard to tell when it was made. The girl is gone. You heard me call to her, and she has not appeared, nor answered. If she did not go herself, some one took her. That’s why I asked you that question.”
“Her mind was all right,” said Pawnee Bill anxiously. “She was depressed and almost hysterical, but not enough so to make her run away in that fashion, or do anything rash.”
“Then we must investigate this moccasin track at once. You’ll see that an Indian could have slipped up to the house from the hills, and where we were working we could not have seen him. He could have entered by this rear door, and he could have carried off the girl. The question is, did anything like that occur?”
Pawnee Bill was one of the best of the border trailers. He and the scout bent together to examine that moccasin track, after they had scanned the hills for signs there of Indians.
Soon they found another track, and then another, and still another, all leading from the rear door in the direction of the hills.
“They’re fresh,” said Buffalo Bill, pointing to a bent grass blade, which had been crushed so recently that sap was oozing from it.
“And look there!” said Pawnee Bill, picking up a broken feather.