CHAPTER XX.AN AMAZING DISAPPEARANCE.

CHAPTER XX.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 herabsent 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 bentgrass 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 fromhere 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 theywere 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 takingto 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.

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