The forest fire had burned over a large tract of country, had driven away the game, and had cleared the territory of Indians. So the scouts separated to follow the trails of different bands of reds and spot their new villages. Their duty was to find and report upon every new encampment of the redskins, that the department might keep tabs on the movements of the savages. Cody kept his eyes open for traces of the bandits, but during the following week learned nothing of the movements of Boyd Bennett and his gang. He was thinking of going to a certain rendezvous where he expected to join Texas Jack, when he came suddenly upon a spectacle in a little valley that brought him up standing. So appalling--and unexpected--was the scene that it seemed for the moment as though his heart stopped beating! Over a score of figures in blue lay in the little cup-shaped coulée, where they had fallen battling for life! There they lay, partly stripped of their uniforms in some cases, robbed of their weapons, and lying amid their foes, hideous, painted savages, whom their red companions, in their haste to fly from the fearful scene, had not borne off to burial. Yet they had found time to tear the scalp-lock from the head of each white man. They lay in no order. The battle had been of the fiercest, and hand to hand. Here a trooper; there another--a redskin, an officer, a chief, a caparisoned steed, an Indian pony--all dead they lay and huddled together by the riverside in the tiny valley. Upon this scene Buffalo Bill came suddenly, just as the sun was about to drop below the western hills. The sight shocked and sickened him. Man of iron heart and steel nerves that he was, the sight made him reel in his saddle. He reined in his good horse, until it rose upon its haunches, and covered his eyes with one gauntleted hand as though to shut out the awful sight. An instant only did the scout show this weakness; then he scrutinized the red field which had flashed like some horrid vision on his sight. White-faced as the dead, with eyes which scrutinized each form and feature of the white men, the scout counted the slain. Gradually his own orbs flashed with the fires of rage, and his lips became livid and quivering. Suddenly, with a stifled cry, he leaped from his horse’s back and strode to one figure that lay stark at one side. It was in contact with a heap of slain on a knoll at the foot of a rock. Here the end had evidently come. This spot was plainly the last act of the fearful drama. Here the curtain of doom had fallen upon the remnant of the gallant band, to rise no more for them in this life! A groan issued from the scout’s lips, and he bowed his head in grief. There, with face upturned, lying in an attitude that showed he had died fighting to the last, lay Lieutenant Dick Danforth!