She shuddered at the memory of Panther Pete lying as if dead on the earthen floor of the hut, where she had struck him down. But she could not blame herself for that seemingly bloody deed; self-preservation is the first law of nature, and she had acted according to the law. When she tried to go on she found that she was so stiff and sore from her tremendous exertions that at first she could hardly walk; but she forced herself to move on, and this feeling began to wear slowly away. She was conscious, too, that she was very hungry, but there was nothing to eat, except some berries she found growing by the trail. There was water in little pools in the bottom of the shallow bed of the stream, and there she drank. Then she went on again, shaping her course by the sun as well as she could, hoping that by steady walking she could by and by reach the more open country, and so make her way back to Scarlet Gulch. But as she thus went on, and when everything seemed to be in her favor, she heard again that horrible baying of dogs. The outlaws, growing anxious, or desperate, had decided to use the dogs again; and had taken them to the place where, in the night, they had been called off, and there had set them to work once more. As that baying broke on the air the startled girl began to run, and again her heart throbbed with fear. All her bright hopes came as suddenly to the ground as a bird with a broken wing. As she thus ran on, her limbs trembling and weak, she saw in the path before her horsemen. She thought they were some of the desperadoes of Panther Pete’s band, and she turned aside, hoping they had not seen her, or that she could in some way escape them. They rode toward her, shouting. Terror shook her, for one of them seemed to be Panther Pete himself. She ran then as she had never run before. The horseman came up to her, shouting to her. When he was quite close on her, and she saw she could not get away, she turned at bay. Then she saw that this man was not Panther Pete, though he so resembled him. The man was Buffalo Bill, the noted scout; and he rode up to her, doffing his hat, and spoke kindly to her. She was so breathless, and so puzzled and startled, that for a time she could not speak in answer to his queries. He announced his identity. “I have a pard back here, and some prisoners,” he said, “one of them being the notorious road agent, Panther Pete.” “Panther Pete?” she gasped. “We captured him but a little while ago,” he said. He looked at her earnestly and swung out of his saddle. “I think you need this horse a good deal more than I do,” he declared. “You had better ride now; you are quite worn out.” She stood before him, trembling. “You are not Panther Pete--cannot be!” “I am William F. Cody,” he said, “better known as Buffalo Bill.” He lifted his head, listening to the baying of the dogs. “They are pursuing you, I think,” he remarked. “Yes.”