me distance up
the stream. Yellow Elk was retreating.

"I reckon I hit him pretty bad," mused Pawnee Brown. "But I'll go
slow--it may be only a trick," and away he crawled as silently as a
snail along the brook's bank.

Inside of the next half hour he had covered a territory of many yards on
both sides of the brook. In one spot he had seen several drops of blood
and the finger marks of a bloody hand. Yellow Elk, however, had
completely disappeared.

"He is gone, and so is the trail," muttered the great scout at last. He
spoke the truth. Further following of the Indian chief was just then out
of the question.

"There is one thing to be thankful for," he mused. "I don't believe he
captured Nellie Winthrop again after he left the cave. I wonder what has
become of that girl?"

Bonnie Bird had wandered down the brook for a drink and instantly
returned at her master's call. With something of a sigh at not having
finished matters with Yellow Elk the boomer leaped once again into the
saddle and turned back in the direction from whence he had come.

It was now growing dark, and the great scout felt that he must ere long
return to the boomers' camp and give the order necessary to start the
long wagon train on its way westward to Honnewell. Little did he dream
of what the government spy and the cavalrymen had discovered and how
Jack Rasco had been taken prisoner.

"Pawnee!"

It was a cry from a patch of woods to the northward, and straining his
eyes he saw Cal Clemmer waving his sombrero toward him. Scout and cowboy
boomer were soon together.

"Well, whar's Rasco and the gal?" were Clemmer's first words.

"Both gone--I don't know where, Cal. Where are the other boys?"

"Started back toward Honnewell; thet is, all but Dick Arbuckle. He's
over ter yonder spring gittin' a drink o' water."

"I am sorry I failed to find the girl," said Pawnee Brown. "She must
have wandered off in the woods and got lost. I am quite certain the
Indians did not spot her again."

"And Jack?"

"Went off after his horse."

"Wot do yer advise us ter do--stay here?"

"I am afraid staying here will do no good, Cal. I must get back to camp
and start the wagons up. I know they won't move a step unless I am
personally there to give directions. The old boomers are all afraid of
being fooled by some trick of the soldiers."

"Thet's so. Wall, if yer want me ter stay here I'll stay--otherwise I'll
go back," concluded Clemmer.

Dick now came up