Pizen Kate stared her disbelief, and then broke into a cackle of spiteful laughter. “Do ye think it’s nice,” she said, “for two men to try to fool a pore, lone woman in that way? I found my lawful and wedded husband here, after chasin’ him all the way frum Kansas City. And you, sympathizin’ with him in his abandonment of me, his true and lovin’ wife, git up this kind of a yarn to keep me frum takin’ him back with me.” John Latimer seemed hurt by the accusation. Buffalo Bill strode again to the door, and then walked on into the room. He began to sound the walls with the butt of a revolver, and to sound the boards of the floor with his heels. Latimer followed him to the door. Pizen Kate was still raving, accusing them of conspiring to deprive her of her husband. “Woman, will you stop that clatter?” cried Latimer, whose nerves were jarred by her abusive talk. “No, I will not!” she declared. “Not till I’ve found that man, and had the law on you two men fer hidin’ him away from me. Do ye suppose I’m fool enough to believe sich a story as you’re tellin’?” Buffalo Bill came out of the room baffled. “Have these other disappearances been just in this way?” he inquired of Latimer. “Not in just that way, Cody. I’ve twice sent servants on errands, from which they have never returned. Once, a month ago, I had a servant girl at work in my kitchen. I was in my own rooms. I heard her scream. When I got to the kitchen there was not a soul in it, and I have seen nothing of that girl since.” Pizen Kate stared at him. “You’re just tellin’ that to scare me away from this place.” “I’m telling you the truth.” “You never saw anything strange yourself?” asked the scout. “Never.” “And you have formed no theory to account for it?” “I haven’t been able to, Cody.” Pizen Kate walked into the room and began to look it over. “I’ve had a good deal of dealings with men,” she said, as she came out, “and I know that you two fellers aire lyin’. But if you think you kin scare Pizen Kate that easy, then you don’t know her. I come here huntin’ fer my lawful husband, and I’m goin’ to stay till I find him.” Buffalo Bill made now another inspection of the mysterious room, and this time he was accompanied in his examination of it by Latimer. Pizen Kate stood in the door, keenly watching them, and now and then sarcastically commenting. Buffalo Bill had never been more puzzled in his life than when he gave up further search there as a useless waste of time. He now commenced a thorough search of the house, asking Latimer’s aid, while Pizen Kate went to the outside, as if she thought she might be in a better position to see there; for she doubtless reasoned that if Nomad was still in the house, and tried to get out of it, he could not easily do so and escape her eyes. Buffalo Bill’s search was unavailing. Nick Nomad was gone. CHAPTER VI. INDIAN TREACHERY.