bullets. What
between Mr Brooke an' me an' time, wonders may be worked, if you're
wise enough to keep a tight rein on your tongue."

While the scout was speaking, the tramp of cavalry was heard outside,
and a few minutes later Captain Wilmot entered the cave, closely
followed by Charlie Brooke.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

The Cave of the Outlaws Invaded by Ghosts and US Troops.

We need scarcely say that Buck Tom was wise enough to put a bridle on
his tongue after the warning hint he had received from the scout. He
found this all the easier that he had nothing to conceal save the
Christian name of his friend Leather, and, as it turned out, this was
never asked for by the commander of the troops. All that the dying
outlaw could reveal was that Jake the Flint had suddenly made his
appearance in the cave only a short time previously, had warned his
comrades, and, knowing that he (Buck) was mortally wounded, and that
Leather was helplessly weak from a wound which had nearly killed him,
had left them both to their fate. That, just after they had gone, an
unusually broad powerful man, with his face concealed, had suddenly
entered the cave and carried Leather off, in spite of his struggles, and
that, about half-an-hour later, Hunky Ben had arrived to find the cave
deserted by all but himself. Where the other outlaws had gone to he
could not tell--of course they would not reveal that to a comrade who
was sure to fall into the hands of their enemies.

"And you have no idea," continued the captain, "who the man is that
carried your friend Leather so hurriedly away?"

"Not the slightest," returned Buck. "Had my revolver been handy and an
ounce of strength left in me, you wouldn't have had to ask the
question."

"Passing strange!" murmured Captain Wilmot, glancing at the scout, who
was at the moment seated on a keg before the fire lighting his pipe, and
with a look of simple benignant stolidity on his grave countenance.
"Have _you_ no idea, Ben, where these outlaws have taken themselves off
to?"

"No more'n a lop-eared rabbit, Captain Wilmot," answered the scout.
"You see there's a good many paths by which men who knows the place
could git out o' the Trap, an' once out o' it there's the whole o' the
Rockie range where to pick an' choose."

"But how comes it, Ben, that you missed Jake? Surely the road is not so
broad that you could pass him unseen! Yet you arrived here before him?"

"That's true, sir, but sly coon