Buffalo Bill's Pursuit: The Heavy Hand of Justice

Buffalo Bill drew rein and looked around. He was in a narrow and lonely trail that ran close by the Cinnabar River.

The country was gullied and cut by small cañons. Several hundred feet below him the river roared in its narrow, rock-bound bed. On the sloping side of this cañon was a number of trees, some of them of large size; and trees of the same kind bordered the trail.

The scout, having drawn rein, sat quite still in his saddle, listening. All he heard now was the roar of the stream, the soughing of the wind in the trees, and the restless champing of his spirited horse.

“Help!”

A sudden cry of distress sounded near him, and once more Buffalo Bill stared around.

The call seemed to have come out of the sky, or to have floated from the mist that rose above the tumbling water of the river.

“Can my ears have fooled me?” was his thought.

“Hello!” he called. “What is it?”

A faint mumbling seemed to come in answer to this, but he could not locate the sound nor distinguish the words.

He rode up and down the trail, looking over into the cañon and along its timbered slope; he let his eyes wander over the rocky hillsides opposite the cañon.

“The wind is fooling me!” was his thought. Yet he was not satisfied to let it go at that; so he dismounted, tied his horse, and swung down the incline of the cañon for a number of yards, and there reaching a shelf of rock, he bent over the river and listened. Then he heard it again—a cry for help.

This time it seemed to be above him, almost over his head; and it sounded so startlingly clear that he could have fancied that the lips that made it were at his elbow.

“Yes,” he said, starting up and staring around. “Where are you? I see no one.”

The call rose louder and clearer, so clear that it was absolutely startling. Apparently, the one making the cry had, for the first time, become aware that the call for help had reached human ears.

“Here I am, right here! Help! I’m right here—in this tree!”

Buffalo Bill rose to his feet and stared hard at the tree before him. It was within six yards of him, higher up toward the level where lay the trail; and the voice had seemed to come from the heart of it. Yet he could see no hole in the tree.

It was a large, stubby oak, wide branching and low; its thick boughs extended along the cañon slope, forming there a massy shade.

“Yes!” he said, jumping toward it. “In the tree? Where?”

The voice seemed now to gurgle, and again the answer was so indistinct that Buffalo Bill climbed up to the tree, and walked around it, determined to find an opening, if there was one.