The king of scouts was in doubt on this point, but the inference was that Holmes believed that she suspected help was near, for, while she was looking at the point of concealment, the villain caught her around the waist, lifted her from the ground, and, despite her struggles, began to carry her in the direction of the peak. “Come on, boys,” said Buffalo Bill, as he leaped to his feet. “My slate is smashed. It’s now a case of get there.” When they reached the basin, Holmes and the girl were out of sight. The huge rocks of the hollow hid them. But as the objective point of the alarmed and desperate villain must be the peak trail, the king of scouts pressed forward, running as he never had run before. He outstripped his companions, and was in an open space that permitted a view of the base of the peak when he stopped in amazement. Rixton Holmes was ascending the peak. Assisted by the rocky rings, he had reached a point over fifty feet from the base. His strength must have been prodigious, for he still held the girl in his arms. She was making no movement, and the king of scouts believed that she had fainted. Had he known that the brutal villain had choked her into unconsciousness, his rage might have overlapped his judgment. Holmes saw Buffalo Bill, and stopped to draw a knife from his belt. “Shoot, if you will,” he shouted hoarsely, “and I will drive this knife into Myra Wilton’s heart.” “You coward,” yelled Carl Henson, who had come up and was beside himself with rage and anguish. “Come down here and have it out with me.” Holmes laughed hoarsely. “I’m playing a safe hand,” he yelled. “What do ye expect ter gain by this monkey business?” demanded Bart Angell, who had his rifle pointed at the villain’s head and was waiting for a chance to fire. If the girl’s head had not rested against the villain’s cheek he would have fired, anyhow. “I’m not likely ter miss, but it won’t do ter take chances,” he said sourly to himself. “Gain?” repeated Holmes. “Satisfaction, that’s all.” His eyes were rolling wildly, and Buffalo Bill realized that he was confronting a half-crazed enemy; and he was the more dangerous on that account. But where was Wild Bill? He had had time to reach the peak, and yet there was no sign of him. While the king of scouts wondered at the nonappearance of his old comrade, Holmes, holding the knife in a threatening attitude, backed out of sight, and continued his ascent of the peak. Buffalo Bill and his companions ran around the base to make a discovery that at the moment gave them some satisfaction. The villain’s progress had been stopped. There was a wide gap in the rings; too wide to be covered by a leap. The path Holmes with his burden had been pursuing terminated at a narrow shelf over an almost vertical wall, which formed the back of a small cove cut out of the base of the peak. The floor of the cove was not smooth. Sharp, jagged sections of the rocky ledge upon which the base rested pointed upward.