Captain Meinhold asked Steve how long it was since the king of the scouts had passed. “The trail is cold,” was the reply. “The night dew has fallen on it. He must be a long way ahead, if he has not halted to wait for us. He is on a trail almost as fresh as his own--and the trail of a bigger crowd, many times over. If he and all with him are wiped out, it is his fault. He should have waited for us, for I told him I’d guide you straight to his trail, and I’ve done it.” “Halt!” cried the captain, turning to his men. “There are smoke signals rising. They must be from the scouts who left us. Yes, it is so. Three quick smokes half a minute apart. That means that a fight is going on. “But it is strange. There is no long, steady smoke lasting five minutes--the signal which I arranged with them to show that Buffalo Bill was there. They must surely have forgotten, or else misunderstood me. Ah, there is another smoke spiral--another and another--but they are farther off!” “And they are not made by those two scouts or by their friends,” said Steve. “Those last puffs of smoke came from the vicinity of that devil’s hole they call Nick’s Cavern.” “I don’t know the place. Who is there?” asked the officer. “It is the favorite resort of the Death Riders--and a strong place. They are a gang of cutthroats and outlaws, sir--one of the worst in the West. I know them only too well! They have seen these signals, and the men probably think they are signs of their own comrades. “They’ll be moving down to help them, too. Whatever gang are fighting over there will get help from them if they are fighting Buffalo Bill. They hate him so bitterly that they would gladly risk their lives on the chance of wiping him out.” “Then we will move on. If there is a fight going on, the sooner we get into it, the better.” And the captain at once put his command to a trot. CHAPTER XXII. WHITE RUFFIANS. May and Gertrude had now been for three days in the power of the Ute chief, and so far, though closely watched and guarded, they had not been badly treated. He seemed to have complete control over his braves, and as band after band joined him in answer to the signal smokes he sent up and the scouts he sent out, until he had gathered a large party, this was very remarkable. For discipline in an Indian tribe is as much to be expected as it is in a newly recruited regiment of volunteers, where every private feels as big as his captain, and sometimes bigger, having no responsibility to settle him down. But how long this kind treatment would last the poor girls did not know, for the chief and his brother often spoke of them as their squaws to be, when the present war trail was at an end. For now, with his force augmented, the Ute chief was keener than ever to hunt down his tribal enemies, the Snakes, and kill and scalp all of their war party.