there lay
the form of Hugh Mayhew, killed in a duel by one whom he had wronged.

It further told that Hugh Mayhew was known in the mines as a desperado,
whose cruel deeds had gained for him the sobriquet of Black-heart Bill.

Convinced that the body in the grave was that of Hugh Mayhew, after he
had unearthed the remains, and recognized in that decaying form his once
brother--one of the triplets--Doctor Dick had seemed deeply moved when
he told that he was the last of the trio and lived to avenge them: that
he was sure Wallace Weston, their old foe, was their slayer, for he knew
from the scout that he had killed his brother Manton at the fort, and
hence he would not be convinced that the grave in the desert of Arizona
held the body of Weston until he had certain proof of it.

"That man who came to your rescue, who called himself the Hermit of the
Grand Canyon, who sought to shun you after his service to you, is either
Wallace Weston, or knows something of him, and it is his trail we must
pick up on his return to his retreat, and follow to the end, before I am
satisfied," Doctor Dick had said to Buffalo Bill.

And so it was that the two had met at the deserted camp to pick up the
trail of the hermit and follow it to the end, bring what it might to
Doctor Dick.

The trail was taken up and followed to the brink of the grandest view in
all nature's marvels, the Grand Canyon of the Colorado.

To a less experienced scout than Buffalo Bill, there would have appeared
to be no trail down into the depths of that mighty chasm, and it would
have been thought that the one whom they trailed had retraced his steps
from there.

But the scout was not one to be thrown off the trail by any obstacle
that perseverance, pluck, and hard work could overcome, and so he set
about finding a way down into the canyon, though there was no trace of a
traveled path left on the solid rocks upon which he stood.

Doctor Dick's determined assertion that he did not believe his old
enemy, Wallace Weston, to be dead, really impressed the scout in spite
of the fact that he had guided Lieutenant Tompkins and his troopers in
the pursuit of the fugitive soldier, had found the body torn by wolves,
dressed in uniform, and with his own saddle and bridle, taken when he
had dashed away upon his horse, lying by his side.

Still, in the face of all these seeming proofs, the fugitive sergeant
might yet be alive and he would do all he could to solve the mystery