"Yours,
B. B."
This was placed in the receptacle near the cross, and, shouldering his rifle, Buffalo Bill set out to look for trails.
It took him a long while to satisfy himself that he was on the right track, but at last he struck off at a lively step along a trail which only a man of his frontier skill could have discovered.
After a walk of a mile he suddenly came upon a spot where there were the tracks of a horse visible. These he followed a mile farther, and the scout saw that the ground was trampled down, but not by hoofs.
The track he had followed thus far had been that of one hoof only, showing that the other three had been muffled, but one had lost its covering.
The trampled grass and ground revealed that the horses had been left there, and all had had their hoofs muffled in some way.
But the keen eyes of the scout picked up the trail, and he followed it quite rapidly until he came to a small stream.
"There were eight horses along, as their tracks show here, but how many men I do not know. When they have gone some miles farther they will remove the muffles from their horses' hoofs, and then the trail will be easy to follow, and it now looks to me as though I will be able to track them to their retreat, and that means the end.
"But night is coming on now, and this is just the place for me to branch off and go to my own camp, following the trail to-morrow on horseback."