“I ain’t believin’ in no devil bird,” expostulated the trapper; “but yer heerd yerself about thet eagle, how it grupped Quicksilver John in ther slack o’ his coat, and jest lifted him gentle down off ther clift inter ther town. Yer heerd thet.” “But didn’t believe it.” “Waugh! I’m believin’ it, now.” Buffalo Bill was still talking to Little Cayuse and his Apaches. “Stay behind, then,” he said at length, losing his patience at last; “we can get along without you! There’s the trail straight behind us, to the town of Skyline; take it, and get back there as quick as you can.” He rode on, and, Wild Bill following, Nomad could not but do the same, if he did not want to hang back with the shrinking Indians. Buffalo Bill did not glance back, but he had not ridden far when the sounds he heard told him that Little Cayuse and his Apaches were following. Their fears would not let them retreat alone; they wanted the protection of the white men. Rounding some ridges in the sunburned valley, where a strange mist had seemed to rise, they came upon a number of bubbling mud springs, which emitted, with the ocherish mud, a fetid odor. Close by these springs, and running off toward the barren flanks of the mountains, were a petrified forest of considerable size, but the trees were prostrate, and some of the trunks and branches were broken. There were more of these mud springs, some with bases of red, where the overflowing mud, impregnated with that color, had built up fantastic formations. One of these springs threw up its muddy jets at regular intervals, with a whistling sound which ended like the shriek of a madman. Naturally, these things only tended to make the Indian trailers think they were being plunged now into some inferno presided over by demons. If it had seemed safe to run away incontinently, they would have done so. Beyond the valley holding the petrified trees and the mud springs was another mountain notch. The trail pointed straight into it. Buffalo Bill followed the trail. He kept his horse at a canter much of the time, so that the Piute boy and his Apaches were forced into a run. His object was twofold—to get over the ground as fast as possible, and to hurry the Indians along so quickly they would not be given time to consider too much the apparent perils they were running into. The notch they entered now was narrower than the others, with steeper walls, of a cañonlike character, and high cliffs naked and sun-seared. In addition, many of the cliffs were banded and streaked with ocher and vermilion, and with various combinations of these, mixed in with duller colors. Sometimes it was as if the cliff walls had been laid up regularly with lines of stones of these colors. The tops were a fiery red. And as the narrow avenue before the party was of that same reddish hue, the general appearance was what one might imagine to be that of a gateway to the infernal regions.