Nancy Williams was now left alone. One day, as they ascended the
Sierras, she too was missed. Little was said. People feared to speak.
There was something terrible in this persecution to the death in the
dark. Who were these men, and where? Did they sit at your very elbow in
camp, and dip from the same dish? They too could keep secrets as well as
the assassins of their so-called prophet.

What had become of Nancy Williams? Had she too really been murdered? or
had she in terror stolen away in disguise, and made her way into the
mines alone? No one knew. People soon became too much concerned with
their own affairs, as they neared the gold-fields, and men only now and
then thought of the name of Nancy Williams.

One day two strange men entered the Howling Wilderness saloon, and spoke
in signs and monosyllables to the cinnamon-haired bar-keeper, and
pointed up toward the cabin of the "Widow." Sandy entered as these two
men went out.

The bar-keeper looked at Sandy a long time, as if some great question
was battling in his mind. At last, in a husky and hurried voice, he
said, as he looked out through the door, and over his shoulder, as if he
feared the very logs of the house might betray him:

"Them's Danites."

"What in hell do they want at the Forks?" The sledge-hammer fist fell on
the counter like a thunder-bolt.

"Shoo!" The red, bristled head of the bar-keeper reached over toward
Sandy. The bar-keeper's hand reached out and took Sandy by the loose
blue-shirt bosom, and drew him close up to the red head. Then again
looking toward the door, and then back over his shoulder, as if he
suspected that his own bottles might hear him, he said, in a sharp
hissing whisper, "Shoo! They want Nancy Williams!"

Sandy's mind at once turned to the Widow. He dared not trust the
bar-keeper. In truth, no man dared trust his best friend where this most
terrible and secret order was concerned. He did not answer this man, but
silently, and as unconcerned as possible, turned away and went back to
his cabin.

CHAPTER VII.

THAT BOY.

As before remarked, the boy poet, Little Billie Piper, sly and timid as
he was with the men, was about the first to make friends with this first
woman in this wild Eden. Men noted this as they did all things that in
any way touched the life or affairs of the Widow, and made their
observations accordingly.

"Thim's a bad lot," said the Irishman, as he rested his elbow on the
counter, and held