It is doubtful whether the scout would have paid much attention to the defile had the sunlight not rested upon some object which flashed in his eyes.
The wide-awake Dell caught the flash as quickly as did the scout.
“Is that a piece of ore with mica in it, Buffalo Bill?” she queried, pulling up her horse.
“It may be,” was the scout’s response. “But we’ll take a look at the thing and make sure of it before we pass on.”
Together they rode over to the mouth of the smaller gulch.
The flashing object was not a piece of iron pyrites, but a short, double-edged knife.
With an exclamation, the scout hung down from his saddle and picked it up.
On the flat handle was a very crude drawing of a horse, burned into the horn.
“This belongs to Cayuse,” said the scout. “That picture on the handle is the way he signs his name.”
“Then he lost the knife?” queried the girl.
“Cayuse never loses anything so long as he is master of his own actions. I incline to the opinion that the Apaches laid a trap for him and sprung it about here. The ground shows signs of a struggle. During the struggle Cayuse’s knife dropped from its sheath, and when he was carried off his captors failed to see it. There seems to be no doubt, Dell, but that the boy is in the hands of the Apaches.”
“Then there must be more Indians than those who attacked us. They could not have had Cayuse with them while they were following us on the gulch wall and shooting down.”
“He may have been with them, or they may have left him somewhere, or----”
The scout broke off his words, while his face tightened in sharp lines.
“Or,” the scout finished, in a low tone, “they have already taken vengeance on him for their defeat at the mine.”
Thrusting the boy’s knife through his belt, Buffalo Bill dismounted, and looked carefully over the ground where the struggle resulting in the boy’s capture had taken place.
Owing to the nature of the soil, the signs were none too plain--a misplaced stone here and there and a few indentations which might have been considered only the natural results of wind and weather but for the disturbed stones.
Walking up the smaller defile a little way, the scout saw enough to convince him that the Apaches, with their prisoner, had ascended the branch.