To show that it did not, she swung down from the nest of branches, and then, grappling the tree as if she were a man, she slid down to the ground. The scout followed her, and soon stood beside her on the shelving slope. “Now I’ll help you up to the trail,” he said. “You must be pretty well exhausted by this time, and----” “Lawk, I don’t need no help!” She began to scramble up to the trail. The scout accompanied her, assisting her as much as she would let him; and soon they stood together in the trail. CHAPTER II. PIZEN JANE, OF CINNABAR. Having arrived at a position in the trail, Buffalo Bill looked more carefully at the woman rescued from her strange prison in the hollow oak overhanging the cañon of the river. The woman looked as intently at him, with black eyes that snapped and burned. She inspected him from top to toe, critically, as if trying to size him up and determine what character of man he was. Then a sudden fiery wrath blazed in her black eyes, her lips became pinched, and then opened in one of her strange cackles. “I guess,” she snapped, “that you’re the man that’s playin’ the fake Buffler Bill trick about here. And if ye aire, then I dunno but I’d ruther been left in the tree than to have been helped by ye. Aire you him, er ain’t ye?” Buffalo Bill could not repress a smile at her manner. “I haven’t the pleasure of knowing who this fake Buffalo Bill is, but I assure you that I am the real Buffalo Bill,” he said. “My name is Cody, as, perhaps, you have heard, and----” She cackled again, scoffing at his declaration. “What’s the proof of it?” she demanded. “I shall not try to present any proof, other than my word.” “And if you’re the fake Buffler, yer word ain’t good furder’n a man could sling a steer by the tail. You ain’t the fake Buffler?” “No, madam, I am not.” “Why do ye call me madam, and how’d ye know I ever was married, to desarve that title? Simply because I’m oldish and have lost my good looks? You don’t know me?” “I haven’t the honor.” He touched his hat again, but a smile disturbed the gravity of his face. “Well, I’m Pizen Jane, frum Cinnabar. Never heerd o’ me?” “I never had the honor to----” “Shucks! Don’t be so perlite. Perliteness is due, mebbe, to young girls with red cheeks and yaller hair, and eyes that keeps rollin’ at the men; but it don’t b’long in talkin’ to a woman like me, that’s seen the world, and had all her beauty knocked off her long ago.” “I only meant----” “Don’t _mean_, then, when speakin’ to me; jes’ _speak_ yer thoughts. I know I’m homely, and my temper ain’t any purtier than my face. I’m Pizen Jane, of Cinnabar.” He smiled. “I’m very glad to know you, and wish to assure you again that I am William F. Cody, known to many as Buffalo Bill.” “Jes’ the same, I’m goin’ to watch ye!” “That’s kind of you.”