as
to whether he was or not.

The scout had been anxious to go alone with the gambler-doctor in the
search, for he did have the hope that, if really found, Wallace Weston
might be reconciled with Doctor Dick, while, if taken by troopers, he
would be returned to the fort and executed, as he was under
death-sentence.

Buffalo Bill never forgot a service rendered him, and he did not wish to
see the sergeant put to death, when he was already believed to be dead,
and the secret might be kept.

After a long search Buffalo Bill found the perilous path down which the
one he followed had gone with his packhorses.

He revealed the fact to Doctor Dick, and the two, after a long
consultation, decided to take the risk and make the descent into the
grand valley.

For men with less nerve than these two possessed it would have been
impossible; and, as it was, there were times when the winding trail and
dangers put their pluck to the test.

At last the valley was reached, and, greatly relieved, the two went into
camp before prosecuting their search further.

The hermit had admitted to Buffalo Bill that he had a comrade dwelling
with him in his retreat, wherever the retreat was.

Would it be that they held a secret there they did not wish known, and
so would resist the intrusion of others? It might be, and that a
death-struggle would follow the discovery of their retreat.

Still, Buffalo Bill was not one to dread whatever might turn up, and he
had seen Doctor Dick tried and proven true as steel and brave as a lion.

And so the search continued, the scout unerringly clinging to the trail
until, just as the two felt that the retreat of those mysterious
dwellers in the Grand Canyon was almost before them, they came upon a
sight that caused them to draw rein and sit upon their horses appalled
at the scene presented to their view.

What they saw was the fallen cliff, and there, just peering out from
among the piles of rocks, was the shattered end of a stout cabin. They
had found the secret retreat, but they stood there feeling that those
who had dwelt in that ruined cabin were beyond all human eye, buried
beneath a monument of rocks an army could not remove in weeks.

"And this is the end?" said Buffalo Bill, the first to speak, breaking a
silence that was appalling.

"Yes, his end, for he undoubtedly lies buried there beneath that mass of
rocks. If it is my foe, Wallace Weston, who has met such a fate, so let
it be."

The