Captain Jerry Prime was probably about five and thirty years of age, light, compact in build, and not bad looking.
He was gentlemanly-looking, and had an air of good breeding about him, which, taken in connection with his attire, would no doubt have been a passport to him almost anywhere, and yet for all that he was one of the worst rascals west of the Hudson.
He was the leader and principal worker in a gang of counterfeiters that was stocking the country with bogus money; and so well had his operations been conducted, that so far he had eluded all attempts on the part of the government to trace the “queer” to its place of issue.
To cover his business, he set up and run in a fair, square and legitimate style, a prairie express.
Of course the drivers were all men of his gang; but all the express work given into their hands was conducted in such an excellent and satisfactory manner, that the prairie express route had grown into favor very rapidly.
Not even the shrewd detectives of the great secret service seemed to suspect the fact that a well-conducted express business concealed the operations of a gang of counterfeiters.
Captain Prime regaled himself with a very substantial dinner, drank half a bottle of wine, smoked some very good imported cigars, and was then about to drop off to sleep when the clatter of iron shod hoofs on the plains a few rods away broke into his doze.
He started from his seat and walked to a small barred window that looked out upon the open space into which the blazed roadway led.
A horseman was cantering up the path at an easy gait.
Captain Prime looked at him keenly, and a puzzled expression crossed his face.