“We lost the trail,” said Dell, “and it took us several hours to find it.”
“Rather queer that Cayuse should have gone astray like that,” commented the scout, with a look at the Piute.
Cayuse seemed very much abashed.
“It wasn’t his fault, pard,” went on Dell. “I thought we could take a short cut, just as you and Nomad did, and maybe save an hour. That, as I figured it, would bring us into Sun Dance not more than an hour behind you. Cayuse said we couldn’t do it, and that the country was so hard to travel even jack-rabbits couldn’t get over it. I had my way, though, and the upshot of it was that we had to give up and go back to the trail. But the trail was hard to find, and that’s where we lost our time. You seem to have been having plenty of excitement on this part of the range,” Dell added, with a questioning look around at the scout and his pards, “and Cayuse and I have missed all of it.”
“Ye had er taste o’ ther excitement, Dell, when ye rode inter thet leetle shoot-fiesta o’ our’n,” spoke up Nomad.
“Umph!” grunted Cayuse. “That no fight. Him all over before Yellow Hair and Cayuse come.”
“How did it happen, Buffalo Bill?” asked Dell.
“There’s a whole lot of it, pard,” the scout answered, “and to get at it from all sides would take a heap of time. Over our supper, at Spangler’s, is where we can hold our powwow. Wild Bill there hasn’t had anything to eat for two days.”
“Don’t keep reminding me of it, Cody,” said Wild Bill. “Just because you mentioned the fact, I’ve got to pull my belt up another hole. If that starvation-act of mine is referred to many times more, I’ll be cut in two.”
Dell laughed at the grimace which accompanied the words.