open the door and
look out. All was dark and still.

The road-agents had gone, and left no sign of their work behind.

When morning dawned, they were seen to have re-camped on the eastern
slope, where the smoke of their camp-fires rose in graceful white
columns through the clear transparent atmosphere.

During the day Dick met Alice Terry, as she was gathering flowers, a
short distance from the cabin.

"Alice--Miss Terry," he said, gravely, "I have come to ask you to be
my wife. I love you, and want you for my own darling. Be mine, Alice,
and I will mend my ways, and settle down to an honest, straightforward
life."

The beautiful girl looked up pityingly.

"No," she said, shaking her head, her tone kind and respectful, "I
cannot love you, and never can be your wife, Mr. Harris."

"You love another?" he interrogated.

She did not answer, but the tell-tale blush that suffused her cheek
did, for her.

"It is Redburn!" he said, positively. "Very well; give him my
congratulations. See, Alice;" here the young road-agent took the crape
mask from his bosom; "I now resume the wearing of this mask. Your
refusal has decided my future. A merry road-agent I have been, and a
merry road-agent I shall die. Now, good-by forever."

* * * * *

On the following morning it was discovered that the road-agents and
their daring leader, together with the no less heroic Calamity Jane,
had left the valley--gone; whither, no one knew.

About a month later, one day when Calamity Jane was watering her horse
at the stream, two miles above Deadwood, the road-agent chief rode out
of the chaparral and joined her.

He was still masked, well armed, and looking every inch a Prince of
the Road.

"Jennie," he said, reining in his steed, "I am lonely and want a
companion to keep me company through life. You have no one but
yourself; our spirits and general temperament agree. Will you marry me
and become my queen?"

"No!" said the girl, haughtily, sternly. "I have had all the _man_ I
care for. We can be friends, Dick; more we can never be!"

"Very well, Jennie; I rec'on it is destined that I shall live single.
At any rate, I'll never take a refusal from another woman. Yes, gal,
we'll be friends, if nothing more."

* * * * *

There is little more to add.

We might write at length, but choose a few words to end this o'er true
romance of life in the Black Hills.

McKenzie an