Page:The Boy Land Boomer.djvu/154

144 followed a faint splash, some 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