CHAPTER XV.
CHEATED OF THEIR PREY.
Literally dumb with terror, so weak that he could not rise, Pond saw this strange cavalcade moving up toward the little lake, and looked to the spot where the Texan had lain down to see if he had yet taken the alarm.
To his wonder and redoubled alarm, he saw the Texan not alone, but with a white man, dressed in buckskin, by his side, and a woman also, apparently in friendly converse, calmly waiting the Indian advance.
Recognizing at a glance the woman as Addie Neidic, Pond realized that the man must be no other than Persimmon Bill, and that his followers were the blood-thirsty Sioux, whom he headed.
"Heaven help me! There is some fearful treachery here.

Wild Bill and his companions are lost if they are not warned in time.

How can it be done ?" How strangely, as if by intuition, strategy, and cunning thought come to some when environed by unlooked-for danger.
Without a moment's hesitation, Pond so arranged his blanket that if glanced at it would appear he was yet sleeping under it, for he left his hat on the stone where his head had been, and his rifle leaning against the tree right over it.
Then, bare-headed, with no weapons but his pistols and knife in his belt, he crept off up the hill-side with the silence and stealth of a scout who had been a life-time in the business.

He wondered at himself as he began to scale the mountain-side, not daring to look back, how he could creep up amid those fearful crags so noiselessly, and how he could have got away unseen, when the Texan and those who were with him were not a pistol shot away.
On, on he kept, ever seeking the shadowed spots, where no moonlight could reveal his form, until at last he was on the very crest of the hill.

Looking down he plainly saw the camp-fires of the Black Hillers below.