But when Wild Bill and Buffalo Bill looked out on its peaceful surface that morning, with the red sun rising in the east as if it were a disk of red gold which some giant hand was pushing up out of the ground, there was nowhere a suggestion of anything unlawful, of any bloodshed, or red ruins of the border. Not an outlaw, not an Indian, not a soldier, was in sight; nothing was visible except the three horsemen, who sat their horses as if they were carved images and who looked, with their horses, like figures in bronze, as the gold of the sunlight fell on them. “Nothing anywhere,” said Stevens, struggling inwardly with despair and suspense. He was a handsome fellow, this young cowboy, with tanned face, clear, flashing blue eyes, muscular body, and broad shoulders, with thick brown hair curling under his wide-brimmed hat. He was such a man as a woman would quickly learn to love. “Nothing anywhere in sight, anyhow,” said Wild Bill; “but that don’t prove that there ain’t any number of redskins, or outlaws, or maybe peaceful folk, within no more than a mile of us, hiding in some of the hollows and draws.” As if to show that this region was not wholly devoid of life, at that moment a band of antelopes broke from a ravine less than a mile away and went gamboling over the short grass, furnishing as pretty a picture as the eye could wish to see. The white patches on their flanks glistened in the sunlight. “No, Injuns, or other kind of cattle, over there,” commented Wild Bill, when he saw them. “Or, if there are, they’re lying too still for the antelopes to see them.” The antelopes swept on across the level land and disappeared in another depression a mile or more away. “The thing we’ll have to do is to separate and look for the trail,” said Buffalo Bill. “We can cover a good deal of country in a couple of hours, and then we can come together and compare notes.” He glanced around again. “You see the mesquite grove straight ahead, with the tall mesquite growing in the center of it like a sentinel? What do you say for that as our rendezvous?” “Good enough!” assented Wild Bill. “We’ll meet there in two hours and compare notes.” “And if we strike the trail, either of us, let a pistol shot announce the fact,” said Stevens; “and then the others can join him.” He was anxious to be in motion again--to be doing something. His haggard face told how he had suffered mentally during the night. When this was agreed to, the three separated, riding in different directions, each with eyes on the ground, searching for the lost trail. It was plain that Barlow, in his flight, had not stuck to the direction he had taken in setting out, yet it was likely, or possible, that he had merely deviated from a direct line to baffle pursuit, and was really keeping on in the same general direction. An hour after this separation Buffalo Bill heard a distant shot. “The signal!” he said. “And it’s from Hickok. He has struck the trail.”