“Cayuse was in the gully with the horses,” Dell explained, “and I was reconnoitering around the ore-dump. Everything had been pretty quiet, up above, and Cayuse and I hadn’t seen a soul. I was close to the mouth of the shaft when I heard something like a volley of revolver-shots. I wasn’t sure there had been firing down here, though, until I had crept to the mouth of the shaft and sniffed burned powder. Cayuse and I had left the spliced riatas hidden in the bushes near the ore-dump, and I ran for the ropes, dropped one end down and made the other fast to the platform. Then I lowered myself into the mine.”
“You took a lot of chances, Dell,” muttered the scout, brushing a hand across his eyes. “You found me lying here, eh?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t see any one else?”
“No. What’s become of Nomad and Wild Bill?”
The scout couldn’t understand why Lawless and his gang hadn’t finished him, nor why he hadn’t been dragged away to the same mysterious place to which Nomad had been taken; but he didn’t stop to debate these matters just then. Getting quickly to his feet, he snatched up the candle and went along the level, looking for Wild Bill, just as he and Wild Bill had gone hunting for Nomad a little while before.
The smell of burned powder was strong, and a slight fog of it was drifting toward the shaft.
Buffalo Bill, followed by Dell, went to the end of the tunnel and back again without finding any trace of Wild Bill. The scout sat down on a rock and took his aching head between his hands.
“This is a brain-twister, if there ever was one,” he muttered.
“What do you mean by that, pard?” Dell inquired.