Buffalo Bill was certainly caught off his guard by the appearance of the stranger upon the scene where he least expected to see a human being, unless a stray Indian. Yet it was a white man, and certainly an odd-looking one. He was dressed in rudely tanned buckskin from head to foot, for he wore a cap of that material, ornamented with the tail of a fox for a tassel. He was a man of large size, muscular build, and looked hard as a pine knot, while his hair was long, unkempt, and iron-gray, and his beard short and grizzly, half hiding a face by no means prepossessing in the features that were visible. The stranger was armed with an old rifle, a muzzle-loader, a revolver of rather ancient manufacture, a couple of single-barrel pistols, and a large bowie knife, while at his back hung a long bow and two quivers of arrows. The eyes that gazed upon Buffalo Bill with a triumphant leer were vicious, small, and glittering with hate, that seemed their natural expression. He held his revolver upon Buffalo Bill to cover his heart, and seemed to feel that he was wholly master of the situation. “Well, who in thunder are you, you old sinner?” demanded Buffalo Bill, seemingly not in the slightest degree taken aback by the sudden appearance of one that seemed to be a foe. “I are ther Bad Man o’ ther Big Horn,” was the cool reply. “The what?” and Bill smiled. “Ther Bad Man o’ ther Big Horn.” “You don’t mean it?” “I do.” “Well, you do look as if you could get away with a big horn.” “Look a-hyur, stranger pard, is yer pokin’ fun at me?” angrily asked the man. “No, you are pokin’ that old gun at me,” was the cool response. “Who is you, anyhow?” asked the man, struck with the superb bearing and handsome, fearless face of the scout. “Sitting Bull,” answered Bill, most innocently. “Do yer take me fer a fool?” “Like as not you are one of the renegades said to belong to his tribe,” was the bold remark of the scout. “No, but I are friendly with ther Injuns.” “That means you dare not live among your own race, for you look as though you might have been a white man once.” The basilisk eyes of the stranger fairly blazed at this, and his brow grew dark with rage, while he answered quickly: “Ef I are, yer’ll never live ter tell thet yer seen me.” “I’ll stake that I do. Come, put up your money, or make no threats.” “Waal, you is a bold one, and I’d like ter know yer handle.” “The boys in camp call me Buffalo Bill.” Instantly the man’s face changed again, growing livid with passion, while he hissed forth: “You is Bill Cody, is you?” “When I am at home, that is my name,” was the reply, and Bill continued: “Now tell me your name, for the more I see of your face the more I feel we have met before.” “We have.” “What deviltry were you in when I saw you last, old man?” “I’ll tell yer jist what I were doing then: It were a long time ago, and you was a mere boy then, and you was guide fer a train I went ter rob one night, and----”