They were in a wide plain, where buffalo grass yet grew despite the winter, and the Panther said with authority that the herd had been grazing here before it was started on its night journey into the north.
"An' if we ride about this place long enough," he said, "we'll find the reason why the buffaloes left it." He turned his horse in a circuit of the plain and Ned and Obed followed the matchless tracker, who was able, even in the moonlight, to note any disturbance of the soil.

Presently he uttered a little cry and pointed ahead.

Both saw the skeleton of a buffalo which evidently had been killed not long and stripped of its meat.

A little further on they saw another and then two more.
"That tells it," said the Panther succinctly.

"These buffaloes were killed for food an' most likely by Mexicans.