AN AMAZING DISAPPEARANCE.
Lena Forest came out of the cabin when she heard Pawnee Bill talking
with the scouts and the trapper. She recognized the scout, for once
he had called on her father, and she ran toward him.
“Oh, if you had but been here sooner!” she wailed.
Buffalo Bill dismounted, and Nomad did the same.
“Yes, we came too late,” said the scout sadly. “I have been talking
with Major Lillie, and we think you should be sent at once to the
town. Major Lillie will go with you, while my old friend, Nomad, and
I will pick up the trail of the Blackfeet murderers of your father.
That’s all that can be done now, except to give your father decent
burial, which we will do at once.”
He took the girl by the hand, and his kind words caused her tears to
flow afresh.
“Now, if you will go back into the house and lie down again for a
while it will be better for you,” he urged. “There is absolutely
nothing you can do, and you need as much rest as you can get before
you start on your trip. We will find your horse; and, if you like,
Nomad will go in and prepare something for you to eat, or make some
coffee for you.”
“I couldn’t eat a mouthful,” she said.
“But you will go into the house?” he urged.
She understood, turned about with slow feet, and disappeared within.
Pawnee Bill found the miner’s spade and pick, and brought them out
for the purpose of digging a grave, which work he and the scout at
once began, while old Nomad set forth on Nebuchadnezzar for the
purpose of finding and capturing the girl’s runaway horse.
Buffalo Bill and his friend worked rapidly, and soon had a grave
hollowed out. Buffalo Bill then went to the house to get blankets in
which to wrap the body for burial.
When he entered the cabin, he was astonished not to find the girl
there. However, he thought she had but stepped out, and he went to
the door to look around. When he failed to see her, he called to her.
To his repeated calls there was no answer.
He stepped out of the house, and walked around it.
Nowhere was the girl to be seen.
There was a rear door, which was unlocked, but was not open, and a
rear window, but the window had not been disturbed.
Cody began to search the ground quickly with his keen eyes. He saw
a moccasin track by the rear door, yet he was not sure but it had
been made at the time the master of the house had been killed. The
house had been entered then, and some things had been taken, so the
girl had declared. That more had not been taken was a marvel to the
experienced scout.
“Gordon, come here!” he called from the corner of the house.
Pawnee Bill dropped the spade he was wielding and came running.
“The girl is gone,” said the scout. “I found her absent from the
house, and I fail to see her anywhere.” He looked at Pawnee Bill
earnestly. “Was her mind so affected, do you think, that she would
slip out of this back door and into the hills, there?” he asked. “If
not----”
“What?” said Pawnee Bill.
Buffalo Bill pointed to the moccasin track.
“That is suggestive, if it is new; but it’s hard to tell when it was
made. The girl is gone. You heard me call to her, and she has not
appeared, nor answered. If she did not go herself, some one took her.
That’s why I asked you that question.”
“Her mind was all right,” said Pawnee Bill anxiously. “She was
depressed and almost hysterical, but not enough so to make her run
away in that fashion, or do anything rash.”
“Then we must investigate this moccasin track at once. You’ll see
that an Indian could have slipped up to the house from the hills,
and where we were working we could not have seen him. He could have
entered by this rear door, and he could have carried off the girl.
The question is, did anything like that occur?”
Pawnee Bill was one of the best of the border trailers. He and the
scout bent together to examine that moccasin track, after they had
scanned the hills for signs there of Indians.
Soon they found another track, and then another, and still another,
all leading from the rear door in the direction of the hills.
“They’re fresh,” said Buffalo Bill, pointing to a bent grass blade,
which had been crushed so recently that sap was oozing from it.
“And look there!” said Pawnee Bill, picking up a broken feather.
Where the feather was found they discovered indications that a
struggle had taken place, for the grass was cut and torn, and the
footmarks did not go straight on; there had been an interruption of
the progress of the Indian.
“It’s clear as day now,” said the scout, rising and looking about.
“Some redskin stole to the cabin while we were busy at the grave.
He had seen her enter, and discovered that he could reach the cabin
without being observed by us. The girl had lain down on her bed, and
was perhaps half asleep, or may have had her head covered up. She
did not see him, at any rate, until it was impossible for her to cry
out; though his sudden appearance may have so frightened her that she
could not utter a sound. Then he picked her up in his arms, perhaps
choking her to make her keep still, and he carried her away into the
hills.”
His nostrils were dilating and his bright eyes had become feverish,
so strongly did this mental picture of the dastardly outrage appeal
to his sensibilities.
“You’re right,” said Lillie. “That is an eagle feather, broken, no
doubt, when at this point the girl made a fierce struggle to free
herself. She tore out the eagle feather; but she could not escape,
for he was too strong; and then, no doubt unconscious after that, she
was borne rapidly away.”
“That fellow can’t be more than half a mile from here even now,”
said the scout. “We’ll have to follow at once. I wish that Nomad----”
Even before he had finished expressing the wish that Nomad was there,
they heard his shout, and saw him riding swiftly in on his old horse.
“Injuns!” he said, before drawing rein. “They’ve captered the gal’s
hoss and lit out with it.”
“Did you see them?” Buffalo Bill asked.
“No; didn’t need to; but I seen what they done, and I seen their
tracks, and the tracks of the hoss. I follered on a ways, to make
shore I wasn’t mistaken, and then I rid ter tell ye.”
“The tracks were fresh?”
“Yes; made this mornin’. Buffler, thar’s Injuns snoopin’ round hyar,
and thet’s a fact.”
“More than the horse is gone,” said the scout; “the girl herself is
gone!”
Nomad stared at the scout, then gripped his rifle and stared round.
“Tooken by Injuns?”
“Yes; that’s what Gordon and I make of it. Here are moccasin tracks.
We think the redskin stole into the cabin while we were digging the
grave, and came on her perhaps while she was asleep. Anyway, the
thing was done so quietly we didn’t hear a sound.”
He pointed to the tracks, and to the eagle feather.
Old Nomad was for the moment almost too amazed to speak.
“We’ve got ter foller her, Buffler!”
“Yes, and at once; and I was going to say to you that if you will
finish filling in the grave of John Forest, we will follow this
trail at once. Then you can come on as fast as possible, and no doubt
you’ll soon overtake us.”
Nomad looked earnestly at the brown hills.
“Crazy Snake?” he said, voicing the name in the thought of each.
“That’s our opinion; at any rate, the rascal was a Blackfoot, as the
feather and the tracks show. I hardly think he had any warriors with
him, or, at most, he must have had only a few, or he would have tried
to tackle us and get our scalps.”
Nomad turned his horse about and rode to the grave, where he slid out
of his saddle.
They saw him at work vigorously with the spade, as they took up the
trail, after getting their horses.
The trail was not difficult to follow, until it entered the rocky
hills.
They progressed slowly, however, for they could not be sure that an
ambush had not been laid for them.
Hard as the trail was to follow in the hills, they clung to it,
finding it the tracks of but one Indian.
After a little while it bent back in a semicircle toward the river,
this showing that the redskin had merely run into the hills to get
the benefit of their cover, and that his real destination was the
river.
They followed on more rapidly, and some distance below, where hills
and trees would screen him from sight of any one at the cabin, they
found that his trail converged more, and then went straight toward
the cañon stream.
Here the trail was so plain in the soft soil that they were able
to follow it at rapid speed, and soon came to the river, where they
found water on the rocks, and other evidence to show that at this
point the Blackfoot had taken to a boat. It was certain he had gone
down the river, and not up; for to go up the river would have forced
him to pass so near to the cabin that he would have been in danger
of discovery, and, besides, the work of pulling against the current
would have been no small labor.
“We’ll have to abandon the horses,” said the scout, when they had
ridden rapidly on for a half mile or more down the river, finding the
way growing rougher, and the cañon walls contracting until the stream
became a walled torrent.
“Or go round, which may be a long journey!” said Pawnee Bill.
“And would be likely to let the rascally redskin slip through our
fingers. We’ll have to keep to the river, even if we are forced to
swim.”
As they talked, they heard Nomad approaching rapidly. He had finished
his work of burying and protecting the body of John Forest, and then
had followed hard on the trail of his friends.
It took but a few words to convey to him all that the scouts knew.
“We want you to ride to the town for help,” said Buffalo Bill to him.
“Raise a strong force, and come on as fast with it as you can. We’ll
stick to this trail. But we’re likely to get into trouble, and we’ll
need fighting men, in my opinion, before we accomplish much. The
rascal had beaten us temporarily, by taking to the water here; and
unless we can get a boat we’re going to have hard work to overtake
him.”
“I’m bettin’ it’s Crazy Snake!”
“So we think, though we don’t know it. Spread the news of the rising
of the Blackfeet, and hurry with a force to help us, or avenge us.”
The last were ominous words from Buffalo Bill, and proved that he
appreciated the dangerous character of the undertaking upon which he
now thought of entering.
Nomad wheeled old Nebuchadnezzar in the trail.
“Right ye aire, Buffler,” he said. “I’ll raise ther country, and I’ll
be follerin’ ye with a company of men ’fore another twenty-four hours
rolls over my head.” He stretched forth his hand. “Shake, Buffler;
and you, too, Pawnee! You’re startin’ on a dangerous trip, and I
knows it. Mebbe we mayn’t meet ag’in ever in this world. But whatever
happens, I know you’ll be found doin’ yer duty.”
He struck his horse with the spurs, waking old Nebuchadnezzar into
renewed life.
“Good-by!” he said. “Good luck to ye, pards!”
And then he rode away--the wise, simple, and brave old trapper, Nick
Nomad.