Chapter XVI: Tracks in the Sand

As Buffalo Bill wished to keep moving, he determined to risk a guess at what was a northerly direction, and also to set out at once; and as Bounderby and the fat German did not care to remain behind, they accompanied him.

It did seem as if there were about three hundred and sixty-five chances of going wrong to where there was one of going right, as Bounderby asserted, yet the attempt to do something seemed better than inaction.

This brought a surprising discovery.

Within an hour’s time they reached a sandy area, which both Bounderby and the German declared to be the one they had crossed.

A search was instituted for the tracks which it was hoped could be readily found—the tracks they had made in crossing the sand on their way to the magnetic mountain.

They did not find the tracks, even though they covered a large area, but in a depression of the sandy plain Buffalo Bill came upon footprints of a woman. The thing was almost too surprising for belief, and he at once called the attention of his companions to his discovery.

“The tracks of a white woman,” he said, “here in a spot where one would think no white woman had ever been; and the tracks have not been long made. The woman was not an Indian, and she was not a Mexican, or, if a Mexican, she was not of the peon class. You will observe, too, that the woman walked with an alert, rapid, springy step.”

Bounderby and his German servant stared at the footprints.

“All of which,” the scout went on, “convinces me that the woman was an American, and that she was young. But what a young American woman is doing here passes my comprehension.”

“Maype she is fooled yoost de same as ve vas py de iron mountain?” suggested Henselman. “Unt now she iss trying to git avay from id. Nein?”

Buffalo Bill looked about, and he let his eyes follow as far as possible the tracks in the sand.

“That would not explain what a young American woman is doing here,” he said. “Come! I’m going to follow these tracks, and see what they mean.”

“Unt maype ve lost our own vay again!” Henselman protested.

“We haven’t found it yet, recollect!”

“Yaw! Go ahead.”

“The American young woman of fashion,” said the professor, in a learned tone, “is usually urban in her tastes. She may venture forth out of a city, but she never gets far from one. Therefore, I am under the impression, Mr. Cody, that if we continue to follow these steps we shall arrive sooner or later at or in the neighborhood of a city. That is scientific reasoning. I have more than once found a bone, and from that bone alone have been able to reconstruct the animal of which it was a part. We see these tracks, and——”

“Look there!”

The exclamation came from the scout, who had hurried on, unheeding the professor’s learned lecture. He was fairly trembling, as he pointed to other tracks, which joined those made by the woman he had declared to be a young American.

The low, sandy surface which held the tracks of the woman passed at this point close to higher ground, and from this higher ground, as from a leaping board, had sprung the maker of the other footprints.

What struck the scout more than anything else was the shape and character of these new tracks.

They resembled in some essentials the footprints of a man, in other respects they were like those of a bear, and in still others they looked like nothing the scout had ever seen in the way of tracks, and his experience and observation had been large.

Instead of waiting to find the explanation, he hurried on again, observing that the larger tracks kept close by those of the woman, as if the creature making them had been pursuing her. A hundred yards beyond, near the point where the sandy land ended in volcanic rocks, the tracks of the woman disappeared.

Buffalo Bill stared ahead, and drew his revolver.

“See that?” he said, when he was joined by Bounderby and the German.

“I see that the woman’s tracks no longer show,” said Bounderby. “And why not?”

“She musd haf vings,” said the German.

“The creature that followed her caught her at this point and carried her on,” said the scout. “You will see that his feet sank more deeply into the sand afterward. He carried her, and as there seems to be not much sign of a struggle, I fancy that he moved so quietly in following her that he was able to overtake her before she knew he was near.”

“You think it was a man?” said Bounderby, sticking his eyeglasses on his nose and bending over to look at the tracks. “Dear me, this is remarkable!”

“You are a scientist! What made those tracks? A man? Or were they made by a beast? A while ago you said that often from a single bone you have been able to determine the form of the creature of which that bone was a part. Then, tell me what made those tracks!”

Bounderby got down on his knees and scrutinized the tracks. A call like that aroused his professional pride and put him on his mettle.

“Mr. Cody, that is the track of an orang-utan!” he declared, as he rose and dropped his eyeglasses from his nose with an air of finality.

“That is the track of an orang-utan. He sighted the young lady from the higher ground back there, as she walked through the lower ground. She had passed him, and he followed so slyly that she did not discover the fact, and right here he captured her and carried her away.” His voice trembled. “And that means, Cody, that we must follow at once. For, as you say, these tracks are not old. This may have been done even while we were at the iron mountain discussing what we should do.”

“But this is Mexico!” the scout protested. “Orang-utans are not found in Mexico.”

“Cody, no one would have believed that snow existed on the planet Mars, until astronomers discovered it as a fact. How this orang-utan got here I don’t know. The creatures may be indigenous to the country. However that may be, one is here, or has been here; and he has, it seems, seized a lady, whom you declare to be an American. It calls for an investigation.”

The scout started forward, and Bounderby and the German followed him. But they could not pursue the trail far, as in a short time they reached the limits of the sand, and after that the ground was of hard volcanic origin, and left no tracks.

“They were pointed in that direction when they reached the rocks here,” said the scout. “It is reasonable to infer that the creature continued in the direction he was going, though he may really have turned to the right or left.”

Buffalo Bill hastened on in the course he thought the creature had taken. Though urged by unwonted excitement and the drawing power of a strange mystery, he yet was as calm and careful as ever.

To know that a civilized woman was in that out-of-the-way place was a thing marvelously strange, yet it did not equal the stupendous discovery that an orang-utan was there.

But was the thing an orang-utan? Buffalo Bill was not yet ready to believe it, though he admitted that had he seen that footprint in a land where orang-utans were to be expected he should have guessed that animal at once. As singular as anything was that the creature had walked on its hind feet. Orang-utans do that at times, though not by choice; yet this creature had walked on its hind feet even before it reached and seized the woman.

The hills toward which it seemed the beast and its burden had gone were farther off than either the scout or Bounderby thought, so that the day was waning by the time they were reached. But neither there, nor in the ground passed over in reaching them, was any indication found of the singular thing that had captured the woman.

While Buffalo Bill still hunted about the base of the hills, loath to give up, the darkness that came early because of the queer character of the atmosphere, began to settle down, and they could do nothing further.

“We’ll try it again in the morning,” said the scout, still undaunted.

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