Half an hour or more afterward the scout saw indications that the old horse had entered a small grove, near a little stream. He could not see the horse in there, and he began to fear that here was an ambush. He knew Nebby might have run into a bunch of road agents in that grove and been captured, with his owner, and the road agents might be lying in wait for any friend of Nomad who followed his trail. Standing off at a distance, concealed by trees and rocks, Buffalo Bill uttered the “cuckoo” cry of the little prairie-dog owl. It was a signal well understood by Nomad, when made in a peculiar way; and when from the grove there came an answering cry, the scout knew that in there no ambush existed. “Hello!” he called, as he now boldly advanced. “Thet you, Buffler?” came in a strained voice. Nomad did not appear, and the thing seemed suspicious, so the scout went on, with revolver held ready for use. When he had penetrated the grove, he found a strange state of affairs. Nomad lay on the ground, gasping, and almost breathless, his hands bound together at the wrist. The ground seemed torn up by his own efforts, for no enemy was to be seen. Close by stood old Nebuchadnezzar, looking at Nomad, and then turning his sad eyes on Buffalo Bill, as if to inquire the meaning of something he had not brain enough to fathom. Buffalo Bill hurried forward and cut the cords from Nomad’s wrists. Nomad rolled over to a sitting position. “Waugh!” he grunted, puffing his cheeks and blowing dirt out of his mouth. “Buffler, talk er ground hogs! I been ground-hoggin’ in the wust way ever. Fer an hour, seems ter me, I been kickin’ round hyar wuss’n any cussed grasshopper. Whar’d ye come frum? And shake! I never war so glad ter see anybody in all my bornd days!” He extended his hand. The lines of the cords, where they had cut into his wrists, showed red, and deeply indented. “Who tied you?” asked the scout, mystified, and glancing all around him. “I don’t see any trail here but yours.” “Waugh! Let me git my wind, Buffler, and I’ll norate a tale fer ye that’ll make yer eyes bug out. I rid hyar bound thet way, and I didn’t ride in the saddle, nuther; couldn’t git up inter ther saddle.” Then he told, in his own peculiar phraseology, of how he had been surprised and captured by the road agents, and of the manner of his singular escape, aided by Nebuchadnezzar.