“Not a bad name, either, if they will only prove braves; but the Indians are experts in giving names.
“Now get what rest you can, for you need it, and I know of no man who could do what you have.”
Ten minutes after Buffalo Bill was fast asleep; but at dawn he woke up, and his pack horse and a fresh riding animal having come up, he had breakfast, mounted, and rode away on his lone trail.
That day every sign pointed to the fact that the Indians had been so badly beaten that though they had met a couple of bands of their comrades, they did not turn back, but went on to their villages together.
It was toward evening of his second day’s trail, as he came to a good camping place, that Buffalo Bill decided to halt for the night, when he was startled by hearing a human voice calling to him, and the words spoken in a low tone.
Out of a thicket staggered a tall, gaunt form, with black face, haggard, and showing deep lines of suffering, while his clothing was in rags, his feet wrapped in deerskins, a foxskin cap upon his head, a tattered blanket, and a rifle, revolver, and knife his weapons.
“Well, my poor fellow, who and what are you?” asked Buffalo Bill, as he dismounted and stood before the vagabond negro.
“I’s mighty near starved ter death, an’ I’d died soon ef I hadn’t had you find me, boss,” was the answer. “I seen you comin’, and I lay low and was goin’ ter let you pass me by, sah, only I seen yer face, and know’d yer were a good man.
“If you had been an Injun, sah, or one ob dem bad white men I seen in dis country, I’d ’a’ jist pulled my gun on yer and got yer horse an’ rashuns ter eat, fer de Good Book do say dat preservin’ o’ one’s life am de bestest law o’ natur’, sah.”
“Yas, sah, and it w’u’d hev been a big chance, too, as I has got but one load in my gun an’ one in my revolver.”
“Well, I am glad you didn’t take the chances; but I would have found you, anyhow, as I intended to camp right here for the night.”
“Den I is sabed, sah, I is sabed, fer I gits somet’in to eat, an’ sabin’ me, sah, means a heap, fer dere is lives dependin’ dis werry minit upon dis nigger.”
“Where---- But you must be fed first, and then you can tell me. Sit there, and I’ll soon have a fire, and cook supper.”