The scout went to the hotel and waited; but he had hardly seated himself near the window and was preparing for a good smoke, when a young man hurried in and asked the clerk for W. F. Cody. The scout overheard and answered. “A note for you, sir,” the young man said. He handed the scout a sealed envelope and went out without waiting for a reply or giving Cody an opportunity to ask questions. The note read: “I am in trouble at the Mason & Moore ranch. Can you not come to me? ---- ----, M. D.” It was the signature of the young physician who had so favorably impressed the scout when he attended Hickok. The scout made hurried inquiries and learned that the Mason & Moore ranch lay thirty miles to the northeast, up toward Crazy Mountains. He decided to wait until noon for Cayuse; if the Piute had not arrived at that time he would go alone. Cayuse had not returned and at 1 p. m. the scout ordered Bear Paw saddled, and departed, after leaving word with the clerk for Little Cayuse when he should come. If Price and his men had planned to first separate and then destroy the band of Uncle Sam’s workers, their plans were certainly working to perfection. Skibo and Nomad were caring for Wild Bill at the abandoned mine; Buffalo Bill was on a blind errand into a strange country, while Cayuse had disappeared in the wake of the chief villain of them all. Buffalo Bill would have had his suspicions aroused by a message from almost any other person in the town, but he had formed an opinion of the young physician that was wholly favorable to the man. He had left the town an hour behind when two men set out in the same direction. Buffalo Bill passed a tumble-down hut with slovenly surroundings, but did not pause. When he had galloped ten miles beyond he was surprised by the boom of three heavy guns back in the direction of Bozeman. They were fired at intervals of about thirty seconds. The scout wondered what it could mean, for he recognized the voice of an artillery piece--it was not a blast, as the uninitiated might suspect. At mid-afternoon he was approaching a pass in a rough section of country, and the trail showed little usage. The sides of the ravine were broken and precipitous, while the banks of a small stream along which the trail ran were thickly clothed in willow. The scout, half instinctively, looked to his guns, and rode erect and alert in his saddle. Somehow those three heavy reports had put a suspicion in his mind. Bear Paw was nervous. He pranced along the narrow trail uneasily, with sensitive ears darting forward and back to catch every sound, and nostrils breathing a half snort at every breath. Suddenly the intelligent animal sprang forward so quickly as to almost unseat a rider who had never been thrown, and as he did so several rifle shots rang out and bullets whistled about the head of the scout.