Up and up the steep slope toiled the Apaches, the white man swearing and urging them on. In a little while the whole villainous crew disappeared over the top of the gully-bank, each group still carrying its helpless burden. Cayuse ran to the horses. He felt them over with his hands; felt of their legs, their heads, and, lastly, groped his fingers over the saddles. One horse he could not recognize, either by sight or touch. The other, unless his reasoning deceived him, belonged to Pa-e-has-ka! Pa-e-has-ka! The Piute caught his breath. Was Buffalo Bill one of the prisoners just captured by the white man and the Apaches? It was a startling thing for Cayuse to come looking for Nomad and find Buffalo Bill. That was not a time for useless thought, however, but for action. Hurrying to the eastern wall of the gully, Cayuse climbed the slope. Its top gave him an outlook over a small, flat plain, stretching eastward and lying distinctly under the starlight. The Indians and the white man were carrying their prisoners across the level ground toward a little hill of stones. A black opening yawned in the top of the stone hill, and Cayuse knew it to be an old, and probably abandoned, mine. The boy dared not go farther, and he knelt where he was and continued to watch. Owing to the distance, he could trace the movements of the white man and the Apaches but indistinctly; yet he saw enough to convince him that the two prisoners were being lowered down into the old mine. The white man and his red helpers clambered up the ore-dump, hovered together there for several minutes, all busily engaged, and then came back down the ragged little hill. And on their return Cayuse could see that they were carrying no one. Facing about, the boy scrambled back into the gully, untied the riata that tethered the two horses to the stone, jumped into the saddle of Buffalo Bill’s mount, and galloped toward the place where he had left his pinto, with the other of the two horses in tow. This move was characteristic of Little Cayuse. The white man and the Apaches were Buffalo Bill’s enemies, and Cayuse considered them his. It is always the proper thing to get away from an enemy everything you can. On this principle, partly, Cayuse was taking the horses. Then, again, he was looking forward to the time when Buffalo Bill and the man with him should be taken out of the old mine and need their mounts. On reaching the defile where he had left his pinto, Cayuse pulled the pinto’s thong from the thorn-bush, changed his seat to the pony’s back, and raced up the defile, leading the animals picked up in the gully. The boy was now in his element. He understood very well that the white man and the Apaches would miss the horses, and would imagine that they had broken away. Search would be made for the missing animals, but Cayuse would make it his business to see that the search was not successful.