The boy plagued himself with questions in an attempt to account for this, and for Bernritter’s meeting and talking with the Apache. Above these things, which mightily puzzled the Piute, was the more important question as to what had become of old Nomad. Still riding and hoping, Cayuse drew well away from the croon of the stamps. Then he heard a sound, far in the distance, that sent a chill to his heart. The sound was a pistol-shot! Just the one report, and no more. Cayuse listened breathlessly, but only deep and ominous silence followed the faint but incisive note of the six-shooter. The boy’s fears leaped to Nomad. He had met with treachery, of some sort, on the trail! Setting the pinto to a rapid gait, the Piute rode like the wind along the gully, the pony, with his muffled hoofs, carrying him onward like a darting shadow. All roads, that night, seemed to lead to the Three-ply Mine. At least it seemed so to Little Cayuse. And, for the young Indian, the way seemed wrapped in profound and forbidding mystery. As he made in the direction of the pistol-shot, he believed he had a clue to at least part of the puzzle. Bernritter had told the Apache to round up more warriors and wait for Bascomb. This had been done; and Wolf-killer, galloping along the trail after Jacobs, had fallen into a snare laid by Bascomb and the Apaches. This is what the boy thought, but he was soon to be undeceived. A snare had been laid, but not for Nomad. A few minutes of swift riding brought Little Cayuse into a zone where a sixth sense told him of danger. Turning from the gully into a small defile that broke through its left-hand bank, he halted, secured the pinto to a white-thorn bush, and carried out his further investigations on foot. Proceeding onward along the gully, keeping in the shadow and dodging from boulder to boulder, Cayuse presently came upon a scene that made him congratulate himself that he had not plumped into it full tilt on his pinto. At the point where the scene unrolled before the boy’s eyes the gully widened, and the starlight sifted brightly downward and dispelled much of the gloom. He saw two horses quite near him. They were riderless, had been roped together, and the riata tethering them had been wrapped about a stone. Beyond the horses were many Apaches; just how many the boy could not tell, but certainly there were a dozen, at the least. The Apaches were working over some objects lying on the ground, and a white man was moving about among them, hurrying them about their work with gruff oaths. Presently the Apaches started up the eastern bank of the gully in two groups, each group apparently carrying a burden. What those burdens were Cayuse could guess. Without doubt they were the men who had ridden the two horses that now stood bound together and secured to the stone.