Hurriedly did the delighted boy go out to the corral and saddle his favorite pony, a coal-black little animal, very swift, full of endurance, sure-footed as a mule, and as obedient to the touch of its young master's hand and legs as a well-trained circus horse. Soon returning, he tied him with the other animals to a tree and then went into the house to prepare himself for the venturesome trip. Coming back on the veranda in a few moments dressed in the buckskin suit given him by the old chief Yellow Calf, he looked the very impersonation of a veteran frontiersman, and but for his childish face might have passed for a veritable army scout. He slung his rifle across the horn of his saddle; its complement of bullets in his pouch he fastened to the cantle, while the powder-flask was suspended by a cord thrown over his shoulder. He also carried his flint and steel, thinking he might have occasion to use it, and with a small lantern was ready for whatever he might be called upon to do. As the welcome darkness would not come for an hour yet, the party kept their animals concealed in the thick timber near the cabin. They sat quietly in the shadow of the veranda, so that if there were any of the hostile spies in the vicinity, as Joe had suggested there might be, they would not be able to observe any unusual demonstration on the place, as the house was completely masked by the giant trees surrounding it. [Illustration: "He looked the very impersonation of a veteran frontiersman."] By eight o'clock it was dark enough to venture out, and the party quietly mounted their horses, and strung out in single file down the narrow trail leading from the ranche to the ford of the Smoky Hill. Tucker, Joe, and Alderdyce were at the head of the line. Every one was familiar with the trail as far as the river, for it was the main travelled track to the village of Ellsworth. It was six miles from Errolstrath, and contained a general store, a blacksmith shop, and the post office for all the surrounding country. The ford crossed the Smoky Hill about two miles east of the little hamlet, but the party did not follow the trail up the river. They took a shorter cut over the hills bordering the stream where there was a series of buffalo paths running northward in the direction they wanted to go. They thus saved a détour of three or four miles, an important consideration where time was of the greatest consequence. The buffalo paths all came out on the other side of the high divide separating the Saline from the Smoky Hill. A short distance beyond the summit of the ridge, and down a gradual slope, was one of the valleys of the several tributaries which gave the many-branched stream called the Elkhorn, its suggestive name. After the party had forded the Smoky Hill, the country was unknown to all excepting Alderdyce and Joe. The latter had often accompanied the Pawnees on their hunts as far as the Saline and Paradise creeks, twenty-five miles from the Oxhide.