silent, for he saw the Texan's eyes fill with tears, and he
seemed to know that nothing which he could say could soften a grief so
deeply felt.

The Texan was the first to speak.

"Addie Neidic is a strange, but a noble girl," he said. "Her father was
a rough sporting man, but her mother was a lady born and bred. The
mother lived long enough to educate Addie in her own ways, but she died
just as Addie was budding into beauty. Addie met her lover when he was a
soldier at Fort Russell, near Cheyenne. After he was driven to desertion
by cruelty and injustice, she met him from time to time, and when her
father died, leaving her all his fortune, she moved up to Laramie. I
think I know now the reason why--she could, meet him more often."

"You said that he was an outlaw."

"Yes; when he deserted he killed the two sentinels who were on guard
over him, then killed a mounted officer and rode away on his horse. He
was hunted for by whole companies as fast as they could be mounted, but
he could not be taken. But after that, if a soldier or an officer rode
alone a mile or more from the post, he seldom returned, but his body
told that Persimmon Bill, the 'Soldier Killer,' as he was called, still
lived around. Wild Bill has done bloody work--cruel work in his time,
but Persimmon Bill has killed ten men to his one."

"It is strange that an intelligent woman like Addie Neidic should love
such a man."

"No--he is both a martyr and a hero in her eyes. A more stately form, a
nobler face, never met favor in the eyes of woman. To his foes fierce
and relentless, to her he is gentle and kind. She will never meet aught
but tenderness at his hands."

"I wish I could have seen him."

"You may yet see him, Mr. Pond. He travels the plains as free as the
antelopes which bound from ridge to ridge. Adopted by the Sioux nation,
known to them as the 'White Elk,' he has become a great chief, and their
young braves follow in his lead with a confidence which makes them
better than the solders sent to subdue them."

CHAPTER XIII.
THE BLACK HILLERS EN ROUTE.

The young Texan had judged rightly when he conjectured that it was Sam
Chichester and Captain Jack that had ridden out from the straggling
column of the Black Hillers, as he saw from his eyrie in the tree.

They had two objects in doing so. The ostensible object was to reach the
camping-ground first with some game for supper, but another was to
converse, unheard by the others, on the p