In consternation, he stood looking about, striving to catch a glimpse of the vanished Snip.

Save a lone buzzard that wheeled in curious circles above his head there was no living thing in sight.
As fast as his heavy, leather chaps and high-heeled, spur-ornamented boots would permit, he ran to the top of a knoll a hundred yards or so away.

The wider range of country that came thus within the circle of his vision was as empty as it was silent.

The buzzard wheeled nearer--the strange looking creature beneath it seemed so helpless that there might be in the situation something of vital interest to the tribe.

Even buzzards must be about their business.
There are few things more humiliating to professional riders of the range than to be left afoot; and while Patches was far too much a novice to have acquired the peculiar and traditional tastes and habits of the clan of which he had that morning felt himself a member, he was, in this, the equal of the best of them.