The young woman darted away, and came back in a little while, leading two horses.
Latimer lay on the ground, apparently hurt, with the young man bending over him. When the horses were brought up by the girl, Latimer was lifted by the youth to the back of one of them. Behind him the young woman mounted, the young man leaped to the back of the other horse, and then all rode away hurriedly, disappearing from view almost immediately.
All this Buffalo Bill saw, as he stood halting and hesitating.
It took place, too, in a time inconceivably short; so that if the scout had even tried to reach the scene of this swift action, he would not have arrived there before the chief actors had departed.
He stood in a sort of daze, however, not starting forward until after the horses and their riders had disappeared; for he had recognized in that young man and young woman the ones he had seen so mysteriously at Latimer’s house on the mesa.
“I don’t know how it chanced that Latimer was out here, but the rest of it is clear enough,” was his thought, as he walked hastily on toward the point where this lively fight and transformation had taken place. “Those people are Latimer’s friends, in spite of his statements that he did not know of their existence. Chancing to be here, they saw his strait and rushed to his aid. That young man is a fighter of the sort I like to see, and that girl is certainly a heroine, as well as a cool rifle shot. I wonder who they are? And I wonder why Latimer should have thought it needful to deny all knowledge of them? Yes, and why did they act so mysteriously at the house?”
These questions could not be answered by an inspection of the Indian the girl had brought down; but the scout, nevertheless, went up to the fallen redskin who was dead.
An inspection of his clothing, ornaments, and weapons convinced Buffalo Bill that he belonged to the Redskin Rovers, which was proof enough that the Rovers were following the fugitives still, and were near.
The dead Indian had a good revolver, and as the scout needed one, he appropriated it, together with the cartridges.
The trail left by the two horses Buffalo Bill followed for some distance, until convinced that it was headed in the direction of the house on the mesa.