Buffalo Bill had not seen the last of Black Panther.  
Two months after the encounter in Running Water’s village the commandant of Fort McPherson ordered him to go, with a small band of his scouts, to the village of the Bear band of the Sioux nation.
 
They were threatening to cause trouble, the officer said, and they must be looked after, warned, and over-awed by a show of force. The famous Company B of the Third Cavalry, under command of Captain Meinhold, would go along with the scouts.
 
The village, when it was at last reached after a toilsome journey, was found to be deserted, except by a few women and children and old men, who, having had experience of the white soldiers before, knew that they had nothing to fear from them.
 
One of the old men, when closely questioned by Buffalo Bill, admitted that all the braves had gone away on the previous day on the war trail. They had had information from one of their hunters of the approach of the white force, and had concluded that it was too strong for them to meet.
 
The old man would not say in what direction they had gone, or what point they were aiming for; but it was easy enough for Buffalo Bill and Wild Bill, who was with him, to hit the trail of such a large party and follow it.
 
Before he left the village the king of the scouts made inquiries as to whether Black Panther was with the war party.
 
 
He was told that his enemy was not only with it, but was its leader.
 
“But I thought that Wolf Claw was the chief of the Bear clan,” said the border king to the squaw who told him this.
 
“He was,” the woman replied. “But Wolf Claw is dead. He was killed by a grizzly bear while out hunting two moons ago, and the braves chose Black Panther to succeed him. He is a great warrior.”
 
The squaw did not know what valuable information she had given to the enemy of her people.
 
Buffalo Bill rode on with the knowledge that the conflict with the Sioux, when he came up with them, would be a more than ordinarily perilous one for him. Either Black Panther or himself would have to “go under.”
 
He was under no illusions as to the inveterate character of the hatred which the Sioux bore him. He knew that Black Panther would, if necessary, be ready to give his own life in order to take that of the man who had beaten him in wrestling and been the unwitting cause of his disgrace before Running Water’s band.
 
Who should know better than William F. Cody that an Indian is not wont either to forget or forgive?
 
After the trail of the Sioux had been followed for a few miles, Buffalo Bill found that the horses of the soldiers in Captain Meinhold’s troop could not keep up with those of the scouts under his own immediate command. The men were not such good riders and the animals were not so good.
 
He, therefore, suggested that he and his men should ride on ahead and the troopers should follow as quickly as they could.
 
Meinhold saw the wisdom of this arrangement, for it was imperative that the Indians should be caught up with as speedily as was possible. It was impossible to tell what scheme they had in mind. They might intend to raid one of the settlements within easy reach of such hard riders as they were.
 
All that day the trail was followed over the prairie, and the scouts kept on far into the night, for it was bright moonlight, and the broad track left by the horses of the Sioux could be followed without difficulty by such experts in the business of Indian fighting as they were.
 
A few hours’ rest—more for the sake of the horses than of the tough frontiersmen—was at last ordered by Buffalo Bill, and soon after dawn the chase was resumed.
 
The redskins outnumbered them by more than three to one, as the trail plainly showed; but n............