As the scout rode along, his keen eyes searching either shore, he saw a grove of trees. There were a number of these groves in the lower part of the cañon, whose floor was of soil in places, rather than rock. “If we can get under cover of those trees without making any tracks doing it, we can probably lie safe there,” he remarked, while Nomad looked at the grove. “Ole Nebby, hyar, kin do ’most anything, Buffler, but he ain’t learnt to fly yit. And, without flyin’, I don’t see how you’re goin’ ter git inter the midst of them trees and leave no sign. Fer thar’s soil hyar, and not rock.” “But the grass, you’ll notice, come right down to the water,” said the scout, “and is a thick, firm turf.” “Go ahead, Buffler; I’m follerin’ ye. Mebbe we kin make it by mufflering ther hoofs of ther hosses. But we can’t muffler ’em very well hyar in ther water, and when we rides out of ther stream with their hoofs bare they’re shore goin’ ter make some tracks.” Buffalo Bill rode toward the shore. When close to the grass, but still in the water, he rose to his horse’s back. Standing in the saddle, with the remaining blanket from his roll held in his hands, he threw the blanket so that it fell on the grass at the water’s edge. It fell, folded, as he had wanted it to; and, with a quick jump, he leaped to it from the saddle. By this clever plan, he kept his boots from cutting into the turf and soil. “You’ve got a blanket, in addition to the scraps you cut the other one into,” he said. “Throw me your blanket.” Nomad threw the blanket to him, and the scout spread it out beside the one on which he was standing. He kept his feet off the ground, while he arranged both blankets in the form of a carpet, which touched the very rim of the water. Then he spoke to his well-trained horse, and the obedient animal walked from the water out upon the carpet of blankets. There the scout put on the animal’s hoofs the mufflers, and then commanded it to walk on, ordering it to stop when it had gone far enough. “Now, Nomad,” he called, “ride old Nebby out upon this carpet, and when we’ve put the mufflers on him I think the trick will be nearly done.” Nick Nomad complied, dismounting beside his horse on the blankets. The mufflers were put upon the hoofs of Nebuchadnezzar. Then the old man rode him on. Buffalo Bill called his horse back to him, climbed into the saddle, stooped from the saddle, and picked the blankets from the ground, and called the trapper’s attention to the apparent success of the ruse. The blankets and the muffled hoofs had prevented the showing of a single hoofmark by the margin of the stream. More than that, they had absorbed the water which ran from the legs of the horses, sucking it up as a sponge would, and holding it; so that not even water remained on the grass there to draw the attention of any eagle-eyed Blackfoot.