he hissed, "I want to kill you before I die myself! I
will never be taken alive, so if you have got the nerve to fight me,
come on!"

Wild dropped his revolvers into the holsters and took Jim's knife.

"I'm after you, Cap!" he exclaimed, a smile playing about his mouth. "If
you want to kill me, come on!"

Clash!

The knives came together in the air, and then the fight was on.

Young Wild West kept slapping him on the face with the flat of his knife
blade, and this was galling to the outlaw.

"What are you, a young fiend?" he cried, savagely, as he received a
scratch on the neck, which he knew could have been his finish if the boy
had so willed it.

"No," answered Wild; "I am simply a boy who has practiced this sort of
business a great deal. Look, out for yourself, Cap! I am going to make
you drop that knife!"

The words were hardly out of his mouth when the back of Wild's blade
struck the villain's wrist.

Uttering a cry of pain, Roche dropped his weapon.

Then he staggered back and picked up a stone.

Crack!

One of the miners fired and the man reeled, and, letting go the stone,
dropped to the ground, dead.

Our hero now went into the cave, for the twelve men who had survived
were all tied hard and fast.

It was only natural that he should want to look around the cave, and one
of the first things he came across was the paint that had been used to
make the signs, or some just like it.

A brush was found, and he painted the following across the entire
breadth of the curtain:

"Closed for Repairs--No More Toll Collected in the Pass!"

"I reckon that looks all right, don't it, boys?" he called out to the
miners.

"You bet!" cried John Sedgwick. "Boys, give three cheers fur Young Wild
West!"

The cheering echoed through the pass.

It was now near noon, but Wild was bent on doing the work he had in
view, so he started in.

He sent the miners on with the prisoners, and then he painted a couple
of signs to take the places of those at either end of the pass.

The signs when finished bore the words:

"Short Cut Pass--No danger!"

(Signed) "Young Wild West."

"There! I reckon as soon as we have put these up we will call the job
complete," he said.

Not until they were up did our friends return to their camp.

There was a big time in Big Bonanza, as might be supposed.

A messenger had been sent over to Silver Bend to spread the news of the
capture of the outlaw band, and, with the p