"Seems they've been having a stampede," Kiddie reflected. "The weak ones lagged behind. Looks as if they'd been chased."
Amongst the stragglers was a magnificent bull, striding slowly but proudly alone. Blood was dripping from a wound in its nearer side, and deep in the wound was an arrow, buried almost to the feathers.
"Been chased by a band of Redskins," Kiddie assured himself. And he began to look out for further signs of the possible presence of Indians.
A mile or so farther on he came upon a buffalo lying dead, but there were no other signs for many miles until he was crossing a stretch of prairie, where he saw the remains of several buffaloes that had been flayed and cut up. Nothing but the stripped bones was left.
Shortly afterwards he crossed the trail of the hunters, and he estimated that the band consisted of about fifty Indians. They had gone off with their loads of buffalo meat and hides towards the foothills, in a direction at right angles to his own.
Clearly the Redskins were not out to interfere with the Pony Express. Nevertheless, Kiddie continued to keep a watchful eye on both sides of the trail as he galloped along, and also to observe the behaviour of his mount and of the wild birds.
It was the pony that gave him the first intimation of danger, by a sudden lifting of the head and restless twitching of the erect ears. This might well have been occasioned by the near neighbourhood of some beast of prey—a lynx, a wolf, or even an ordinary coyote.
By itself, it meant little, but it was enough to make Kiddie attentive, even though he had assured himself that the Indians, or, at all events, the main body of them, had gone home to their reservation beyond the Rattlesnake Mountains. There were other signs, however.
The gorge through which he was riding was thickly wooded with willows and larch trees, and far in advance of him he saw that the birds had been disturbed. They were in agitated flight over the tree-tops. Above the thudding of his pony's hoofs he heard the raucous squawk of a jay—the most alert of sentinels. It was not at his own approach that the birds were alarmed, but something which was happening nearer to them in the woodland glades.
Kiddie was not more concerned than usual; he was not even suspicious of coming danger, nor did he alter by so much as an inch his seat in the saddle or tighten his grip on the bridle reins.