The beautiful girl looked up pityingly.
"No," she said, shaking her head, her tone kind and respectful, "I cannot love you, and never can be your wife, Mr. Harris."
"You love another?" he interrogated.
She did not answer, but the tell-tale blush that suffused her cheek did, for her.
"It is Redburn!" he said, positively. "Very well; give him my congratulations. See, Alice;" here the young road-agent took the crape mask from his bosom; "I now resume the wearing of this mask. Your refusal has decided my future. A merry road-agent I have been, and a merry road-agent I shall die. Now, good-by forever."
On the following morning it was discovered that the road-agents and their daring leader, together with the no less heroic Calamity Jane, had left the valley—gone; whither, no one knew.
About a month later, one day when Calamity Jane was watering her horse at the stream, two miles above Deadwood, the road-agent chief rode out of the chaparral and joined her.
He was still masked, well armed, and looking every inch a Prince of the Road.
"Jennie," he said, reining in his steed, "I am lonely and want a companion to keep me company through life. You have no one but yourself; our spirits and general temperament agree. Will you marry me and become my queen?"