y to look at this
affair."

"How is that?"

"If those road-agents were treacherous, as you seem to fear, it would
end in their utter annihilation."

"How so, Doc?"

"Why, the miners would send the alarm to W---- and to Fort Faraway, and
we would have that splendid fellow, Buffalo Bill, leading a column of
soldiers on the hunt for them from one point, another force would push
out from W----, and a couple of hundred miners from Last Chance, and
every outlaw in this part of the country would be caught and hanged."

"I believe you are right, Doc. I had not thought of the result of
treachery on their part, for they would get the worst of it; no, I guess
all will go well."

"I think so, and hope so sincerely," answered Doctor Dick, and the coach
rolled on in silence for some time, when Harding asked:

"What do you think of Brandon's disappearance, doctor?"

"I hardly know what to think, unless he has fallen from some precipice
and killed himself."

"I guess that is it; but now let me give you a warning, Doc."

"Of what?"

"That young girl."

"What have I to fear, pard?"

"If you don't fall in love with her, you are a different man from what I
take you to be."

"You have been caught, I see."

"Yes, I'm gone, clean gone; but I guess that is all the good it will do
me, for I suppose her lover is that poor fellow Brandon."

"You only think her lovely just because she is the only woman you have
seen on the frontier. She is doubtless as ugly as an old maid."

"Just wait and see her, and then say which of us is wrong," said
Harding, with a confident smile.

As the coach turned around a cliff, neither Doctor Dick nor Harding saw
that there was a man standing among the pinons watching them. He had,
from his position, been able to see the coach a mile away, as it wound
along the valley, and he had watched it as it approached with seemingly
the deepest interest.

He stood erect, like a soldier on duty, one hand resting upon a
repeating rifle, the other grasping a field-glass, which he had
occasionally raised to his eyes and viewed the coming stage.

He stood like a sentinel, and had been there for an hour or more before
the coach rolled into view.

A glance was sufficient to show that the silent sentinel on the cliff
was none other than Buffalo Bill, the chief of scouts.

He was dressed as was his wont, and back from the cliff a couple of
hundred yards, grazing upon the ridge, was his horse.

But, strange