He conducted them as quickly as possible down the cañon, and then out into the burned grassland, to the spot where his horse had tried to leap the deep gully, and had fallen into it. The horse was found there, dead, for in its fall it had received injuries which killed it. Clayton and the scouts, in gaining this spot, followed the gully from the cañon, thus remaining below the level of the grassland; a fact they counted on to keep them out of sight of any Blackfeet in the hills. The young man showed them where he had fallen, and where he had searched, after his return to consciousness. They took up the work where he had dropped it, giving to it their great skill. There were no tracks visible at first in the burned grass; but when they had gone up the gully some distance they found an Indian trail. Two pairs of moccasins had come down from the hills to that point, where they had entered the gully. As they had not climbed out of the gully on the other side, it was certain they had either gone back, or up or down it. They had not gone back, and the scouts began to search the gully closely. Then they found faint traces of the moccasin tracks on the hard soil, with the toes pointing down the gully. Following this faint trail, they discovered that the Indians had reached the point where now lay the dead horse. The rest was plain. They had captured the girl and taken her on with them; and, being in a hurry, through fear, perhaps, they had not stopped to scalp the young white man who lay there unconscious, and whom no doubt they thought dead. “They went with her to the cañon,” was the declaration of Buffalo Bill, when he had spelled this out from the dim writing in the soil of the gully. They hastened on to the cañon, and soon reached it. The stream roared and raced before them. On the opposite side was a high, unscalable wall, showing conclusively that the Indians and their prisoner had not gone that way. “Gone downstream,” said Buffalo Bill; “and, of course, they went in a canoe, for they couldn’t have done otherwise.” There was nothing to do now but to retrace their way to where the scouts had sunk the Indian canoe, raise it, and set out down the river, following the blind water trail taken by the Indians and their captive. The mental state of young Clayton may be imagined while this search was being made, and now when this canoe pursuit was begun. Yet he tried to be hopeful, and he was resolutely courageous. He crouched in the stern of the canoe, wishing that he had in his own hands the stout ash blade which the scout was wielding so skillfully in the bow. He felt that the speed of the canoe was slow, very slow, though it was going as fast as the nature of the channel warranted. Rocks jutted up in the stream here and there, and at sharp bends the rocks at the sides threatened the canoe as it swung round them. Buffalo Bill gave his sole attention to the stream and to the paddle.