and then the
route traversed a country rocky and uneven and wound through cuts and
defiles and around rocky buttes of strange formation. This continued
for ten miles, and the last defile cut through a ridge of rock, called
the Backbone, which ranged in height from twenty to forty feet, smooth,
unbroken and perpendicular on its eastern face. This ridge wound and
twisted from the big chaparral twenty miles below the defile to a branch
of the Limping Water, fifteen miles above. And in all the thirty-five
miles there was but a single opening, the one used by Bill and the stage.

In crossing the level plain Bill could see for miles to either side of
him, but when once in the rough country his view was restricted to yards,
and more often to feet. It was here that he expected trouble if at all,
and he usually went through it with a speed which was reckless, to say
the least.

He had just dismissed the possibility of meeting with Apaches as he
turned into the last long defile, which he was pleased to call a canyon. As
he made the first turn he nearly fell from his seat in astonishment at
what he saw. Squarely in the center of the trail ahead of him was a
horseman, who rode the horse which had formerly belonged to Jimmy of
the Cross Bar-8, and across the cut lay a heavy piece of timber, one
of the dead trees which were found occasionally at that altitude, and
it effectively barred the passing of the stage. The horseman wore his
sombrero far back on his head and a rifle lay across his saddle, while
two repeating Winchesters were slung on either side of his horse. One
startled look revealed the worst to the driver--The Orphan, the terrible
Orphan faced him!

"Don't choke--I'm not going to eat you," assured the horseman with a
smile. "But I'm going to smoke half of your tobacco--and you can bring me
a half pound when you come back from Sagetown. Just throw it up yonder,"
pointing to a rocky ledge, "and keep going right ahead."

Bill looked very much relieved, and hastily fumbled in his hip pocket,
which was a most suicidal thing to do in a hurry; but The Orphan didn't
even move at the play, having judged the man before him and having faith
in his judgment. The hand came out again with a pouch of tobacco, which
its owner flung to the outlaw. After putting half of it in his own pouch
and enclosing a coin to pay for his half pound, The Orphan tossed it
back again and then moved the tree trunk until it fell to the road, when
he dis