It was a night, a night made brilliant by moon and stars. The scout was two days from Portales, New Mexico, having diverged from the trail taken by his pards in order to halt for half a day in the town of Texico. Buffalo Bill was off the trail, a plainsman having shown him a short cut that was to save many miles of saddle work. As Bear Paw forged ahead at a slow, steady gallop, the scout rocked gently in his saddle, half dozing. He did not see the stovepipe that rose out of the ground in front of him, nor did he see the little ridgelike lifting of the earth adjacent to the stovepipe. Bear Paw saw the pipe, however, and to evade it attempted to cross the small elevation. Intelligent horse though he was, how was he to know that elevation was not solid earth? The black charger was in for a surprise. It was sprung with demoralizing suddenness. Two strides carried Bear Paw over the high point of the ridge; a third stride brought a crash under his rear hoofs, and the after part of his body slumped downward. A startled yell, seemingly coming out of the very earth, smote on the scout’s ears. Caught at a disadvantage by the accident, Buffalo Bill was thrown backward out of his saddle and clear of the struggling horse. Bear Paw’s front hoofs were on solid ground and, with a prodigious effort, he saved himself from sinking and clambered to safety beyond the deceptive ridge. But the scout dropped through the breach, grabbed at a log rafter, missed it, and fell in a huddle for a distance of ten feet. He brought up on all fours, jarred through and through and blinking in a cloud of dust and a flood of lamplight. A clutter of dirt and broken poles lay around him. The transformation from an easy gallop over the cool, open plain to this underground hole with its light and dust, had been so abrupt that the scout was taken at a loss. But he was not the only one taken at a loss. In front of him, as the flurry of dust was wafted aside, he saw a strapping figure in hickory shirt, homespun trousers and cowhide boots--a figure topped with a mop of red hair, under which was a lean, leathery face. The face of the figure was blank. Two washed-out blue eyes stared at the scout; and the scout, on hands and knees, stared back. “Who in blazes are ye?” demanded the red-headed man, all at once finding his voice. “A stranger and a traveler,” answered the scout, the ludicrous nature of the situation gradually appealing to him. “A man who--er--a-tchoo!” “What d’ye mean by knockin’ a hole in the roof an’ slammin’ in on me like this?” went on the other, coming out of his surprise with a manner distinctly hostile. The scout picked himself up slowly, felt of his bruises, and gave vent to a grewsome laugh. “If you think, amigo, that I meant to knock a hole in your roof,” said he, “you’ve another guess coming. If I had planned to pay you a visit I wouldn’t have gone about it like this, would I?”