Nomad was silent, getting out the food and the cooking vessels; but what the scout stated was not lost on him. “You’re goin’ ter try to foller thet ole Scar Head, Buffler?” he asked at length. “We don’t intend to trouble ourselves in the least about him, Nomad,” was the reply. “We brought him along for a guide, as he knows more about this section than any of us; but as he seems to have deserted us, we’ll just go on without him, and let him work out his own salvation. We’re no worse off than if we hadn’t started with him.” Nomad shook his head in vigorous dissent. “A heap wuss off!” he asserted. “That’s as one looks at it, perhaps,” said the scout. He would not argue the matter with his trapper pard. “Yer ain’t any idee why he done it?” “No.” “What has yer found out thar in ther sand?” Buffalo Bill explained the nature of the discoveries made. “These hyar reds seem ter be havin’ more gold and silver than they kin well kerry, jedgin’ by ther way they drap it,” commented Nomad, as he inspected the gold piece which the scout showed him. “Recklect thet silver yearring, we thought it war, which war let fall thar by Morgan’s, whar ther kid was took, an’ now this hyar gold ornyment!” “Perhaps we’ll pick up enough gold and silver along this trail to pay us for our time and trouble,” remarked the scout, laughing, as he put the gold piece away in his pocket. By this time Little Cayuse had reached the edge of the small sand plain; and the Apaches, who had hurried their steps, were right behind him. Little Cayuse halted and looked at Buffalo Bill; apparently he expected a rebuke of some kind. But Buffalo Bill chose rather to ignore what had happened. “Have the Apaches come in, and we’ll get something to eat in a short time,” he said to the Piute boy. “We’ll likely have a hard day of it, and we want to start in with well-lined stomachs. Nomad, I suppose you watered the horses?” The trapper started guiltily, a flush spreading over his hairy face. “Waugh!” he grunted. “Buffler, I clean fergot it.” The discovery that he had been so derelict seemed to arouse him, and he sprang with vigor to the back of Hide-rack, and, taking the reins of the other horses; he led them back across the ridge to the water hole, close by which they had made their night camp. When he had watered the horses and returned, the breakfast was ready, the meat roasted to a turn, and the coffee smoking hot in the tin coffeepot. Buffalo Bill called the Piute and his Apaches to the morning meal, avoiding any mention, for the time, of the things that had so disturbed them. It was the best course to pursue, under the circumstances. Yet they did not eat well—their appetites were gone for the time. Only when the scout ordered a forward march, after breakfast, did Little Cayuse bring up the matter that troubled them. “Apaches say um bad medicine, Pa-e-has-ka!” he said. Buffalo Bill looked directly at him.