the coach started
upon its return.

Buffalo Bill could not have reached a point to head it off had he tried,
and he felt that he must still be cautious. But he was determined to
reach the Dead Line and take up the trail from there, for certainly the
road-agents had not allowed Celeste Seldon to walk to the scene of the
exchange.

After half an hour he gained a point just over the Dead Line, and from
there saw that all was quiet. The outlaws had left, beyond all doubt.

It was an hour before the scout could make his way around to the Dead
Line, and there he felt in the little "post-office" for a letter from
Harding. But none was there.

"He dared not attempt it," he muttered.

Then taking a leaf from his note-book, he wrote:

"I am again on the trail. I saw the lady returned to
you. I will take the outlaws' trail from here, and hope
to track them to their lair.

"In a few days, now, I will have the surgeon-scout with
me in my work, so the end is not far away.

"Keep me posted as before, as I will you.

"Yours, B. B."

This was placed in the receptacle near the cross, and, shouldering his
rifle, Buffalo Bill set out to look for trails.

It took him a long while to satisfy himself that he was on the right
track, but at last he struck off at a lively step along a trail which
only a man of his frontier skill could have discovered.

After a walk of a mile he suddenly came upon a spot where there were the
tracks of a horse visible. These he followed a mile farther, and the
scout saw that the ground was trampled down, but not by hoofs.

The track he had followed thus far had been that of one hoof only,
showing that the other three had been muffled, but one had lost its
covering.

The trampled grass and ground revealed that the horses had been left
there, and all had had their hoofs muffled in some way.

But the keen eyes of the scout picked up the trail, and he followed it
quite rapidly until he came to a small stream.

"There were eight horses along, as their tracks show here, but how many
men I do not know. When they have gone some miles farther they will
remove the muffles from their horses' hoofs, and then the trail will be
easy to follow, and it now looks to me as though I will be able to track
them to their retreat, and that means the end.

"But night is coming on now, and this is just the place for me to branch
off and go to my own camp, following the trail to-morr