“If you can find a man in my band who would touch a dollar’s worth of it for a service to you I wouldn’t have him with me five minutes after I knew it,” said Buffalo Bill, somewhat hotly, and the men joined heartily in their chief’s opinion. A quarter of an hour after their arrival in camp the scouts started off, with Buffalo Bill in the lead. The Indian camp was left just as it was found, with the exception of the gold and the rescued prisoner. The gold boomer’s horse and the ponies were left grazing near the dead redskins, where they had been placed by their comrades, and there was nothing to reveal that other than the supposed “evil spirit,” a black ghost, had been there. The superstitious dread of the Indians all knew would allow them to believe that the evil spirit had been angry with them for taking the paleface. The scouts turned toward the base of the mountains and went along the range. Mile after mile they held on until a stream was come to, flowing out of a cañon, a march of fully a dozen miles had been made, and in a secure spot Buffalo Bill encamped his men. Then the swollen limbs of the rescued prisoner were bathed, arnica put on them, and a good meal cooked for all to enjoy, for Buffalo Bill saw that a bend in the range would completely hide the smoke from the Indians up the valley. It was a good place, too, where the gold could be hidden, for Don Miller proudly said there was not a man in the party but whom he would trust with the secret. If the people of the valley were found, the retreat would be up the Big Horn to that point, at least, whether they were making for Fort Aspen or Fort Fetterman, and the gold could be taken up and carried along or a special expedition made for it. So the gold, in bright, glittering particles, from the size of a pinhead to an acorn, and nuggets as large as a hen’s egg, were packed more closely and hidden in a crevice in the cliff overhanging the cañon. The march was not resumed that day, for Buffalo Bill wished to see whether the Indians did follow, and, if so, that was a splendid place for a stand, if as “black spirits” the scouts could not frighten them off, and had consequently a fight on their hands. The next morning, as not an Indian had been seen, the party took up the march. Don Miller expressed himself as feeling much better, and said that he would be all right soon. On his account it was slow traveling, but Buffalo Bill felt that he owed his life to the gold-boomer captain, and could not do too much for him, and the men had the same feeling toward him for what he had done for their chief. Thus another day passed, and Buffalo Bill knew that they had got well up toward the Big Horn Mountains, and if the people of the valley lived they could not be so very far from where the camp then was. CHAPTER XXIV. THE LOST VALLEY.