“He was mighty quiet about it,” muttered the scout. “I reckon that’s the first time a redskin ever caught me napping, but I was so wrapped up in that shaft that I hadn’t sense for anything else. The Ponca left his horse down the gulch, I suppose, and stole up on me?”
“All same,” said the girl. “When he leave um cayuse, me leave um cayuse, too. When he crawl through chaparral, me crawl through chaparral, too. Then me come out, watch um Ponca while he lift pick. Right off, me throw um rock and give yell. Pa-e-has-ka great warrior!” finished the girl, admiration in her eyes.
“That fight was nothing to brag about, Wah-coo-tah,” answered the scout deprecatingly. “I think I should have got the red in the end, but, as it turned out, an accident brought the fight to a close. There was more reason in your hiding out and watching for the Ponca than I had imagined.”
“Me know um Ponca,” said the girl.
The scout, having regained his breath, again knelt by the opening, and looked and listened. All was silent as before.
He pushed one hand into the opening and felt for a ladder, or a rope, but he could find neither. Wah-coo-tah, divining what he was looking for, hurried down the side of the ore-dump and returned with some twenty feet of rope which she had seen lying there. Silently she offered it to the scout.
“That may help, Wah-coo-tah,” said Buffalo Bill, “but I hardly think it is long enough. I’ll go for my riata.”
Having gone into the thicket and secured the riata from his saddle, the scout spliced it to the twenty feet of rope found by the girl, then lowered the spliced ropes down into the shaft, and made the upper end fast to the platform.
“Ponca dead,” said the girl. “Why Pa-e-has-ka go down and look?”
“I’m not going down to look at the Ponca, Wah-coo-tah, but to look for Wild Bill,” the scout answered. “You say you overheard talk between Seth Coomby and Clancy which led you to believe Wild Bill had come out to this mine with Lawless. Lawless returned to Sun Dance, and it may be he left Wild Bill here. I’m going down to find out.”