“Go on,” said Buffalo Bill to the marshal. “Tell me about the child.” “Well, you know the story?” “Not clearly. I was not at Fort Grant when your messenger arrived; so what I know I received at third hand, from the commander there, on my return. But he said that word had come from here of the kidnaping of a child by Indians, and he ordered me to report here and see what I could do.” “Well, that’s straight, and nearly the whole of it. It’s Bill Morgan’s boy, down at the foot of the hill over there. They live beyond the town, ye see, and so it was an easy job for the reds to sneak in and do their work, particularly as no one was thinkin’ of such a thing, and the kid was allowed to play round outdoors all he wanted. I’ve sent for Morgan and his wife, so’s they can tell you all about it, and jest how it happened; but that’s all they know, or any one does, unless it’s Tom Conover.” He produced some cigars and passed them to the scout, as if the matter under consideration called for such care that haste would be its ruin. “Thanks!” said Buffalo Bill, accepting a cigar in the spirit in which it was offered. Woods struck a match, which he held out for the scout’s use, lighting his own cigar from it after the scout’s was going. Then he settled back in his chair with quite as much deliberation. Before he went on with his story the clerk of the hotel returned to the office, and some other men came in at the clerk’s heels. They ranged themselves by the bar, where one or two of them called for liquor, which the clerk dispensed from a long-necked, black bottle. “What Tom Conover told me maybe amounts to something,” said the marshal, “and maybe it don’t; but you’re entitled to know it, and it may help. It’s this: About twenty or thirty years ago, he said, a child was missin’ in jest about this same way. Skyline wasn’t standin’ here at that time. The kidnapin’ was done south o’ here, at the old ’Doby Wells, where a settler had pitched his shack and was trying to live. Injuns swung down from the mountains and run off with the kid; they didn’t massacree, nor burn the house, nor they didn’t make any ginral raid; they jest snatched up the kid and hit the trail for the mountains.” “And what became of the child?” “Well, if anybody knows, I don’t; Conover didn’t seem to. He jest remembered that. But he said he recalled that when it was done there was talk around to the effect that every twenty or thirty years them hill Injuns did a trick like that; what for I don’t know, and I reckon nobody don’t. My idea, though, if I was put to it, is that if the thing ever really happened, it was for a sacrifice of some kind.” The scout smoked in silence as Woods talked. “Anything else?” he said, when Woods stopped.