When he had penetrated the grove, he found a strange state of affairs. Nomad lay on the ground, gasping, and almost breathless, his hands bound together at the wrist. The ground seemed torn up by his own efforts, for no enemy was to be seen. Close by stood old Nebuchadnezzar, looking at Nomad, and then turning his sad eyes on Buffalo Bill, as if to inquire the meaning of something he had not brain enough to fathom.
Buffalo Bill hurried forward and cut the cords from Nomad’s wrists. Nomad rolled over to a sitting position.
“Waugh!” he grunted, puffing his cheeks and blowing dirt out of his mouth. “Buffler, talk er ground hogs! I been ground-hoggin’ in the wust way ever. Fer an hour, seems ter me, I been kickin’ round hyar wuss’n any cussed grasshopper. Whar’d ye come frum? And shake! I never war so glad ter see anybody in all my bornd days!”
He extended his hand. The lines of the cords, where they had cut into his wrists, showed red, and deeply indented.
“Who tied you?” asked the scout, mystified, and glancing all around him. “I don’t see any trail here but yours.”
“Waugh! Let me git my wind, Buffler, and I’ll norate a tale fer ye that’ll make yer eyes bug out. I rid hyar bound thet way, and I didn’t ride in the saddle, nuther; couldn’t git up inter ther saddle.”
Then he told, in his own peculiar phraseology, of how he had been surprised and captured by the road agents, and of the manner of his singular escape, aided by Nebuchadnezzar.
“Thar never war yit another sech hoss, Buffler, on the top o’ ther airth!” he declared, with characteristic enthusiasm. “Whoa, Nebby, consarn ye; don’t git bashful and restless jes’ ’cause I’m praisin’ ye! Stan’ still, thar!” He looked lovingly at the homely old beast. “Nebby seen jes’ ther fix I war in, and he felt jes’ as bad as I did, and war jes’ as ’shamed o’ ther way we had been caught nappin’. And so he war ready fer somethin’ desprit, and he done it. I jes’ hooked my two tied hands over the horn o’ ther saddle and Nebby carried me off, same’s as if I war a bag o’ meal hooked onter him. It war ther greatest thing I ever knowed on, Buffler, an’ no mistake. But after Nebby’d done his part, I still seemed ter be not much better off. I got my hands from over the saddle horn, but I couldn’t ontie ’em. I tried to gnaw ther cords loose, but my ole teeth has seen their best days, and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t break ther cords, and thar I war; fer, smart as Nebby is, I couldn’t nowise git him ter do anything. I tried ter git him ter bite at ther cords, but he wouldn’t, and jes’ stood lookin’ at me, wonderin’ what kind of a crazy fit I war havin’; fer I war shore pawin’ up ther ground suthin’ dreadful, in tryin’ ter git myself free.”
The old trapper told what he knew of the girl who had been left behind in the power of the road agents, and of the road agents themselves; though this last was little enough, and largely guesswork, as he had not seen their faces.
The scout saw that some strenuous and perilous work was cut out for him. At all hazards, Lena must be rescued, and her lover as well.