A heavy silence had fallen over the scene of death.
IN THE HANDS OF THE REDSKINS.
"Well, I guess that will be about all—that settles the career of the world's greatest bandit," averred the Captain.
Both officers and men stood on the brink of the black chasm, gazing down fearsomely into the apparently bottomless pit. The thought of the fearful plunge that they had just witnessed, had a sobering effect on all of them. It had stirred within the men an emotion almost akin to fear, and each trooper as he turned away, felt a little chill trickle up and down his spinal column, all in spite of his stern effort to repress it. Hated as was the great outlaw, the soldiers rated him as a brave man, a quality that touches a responsive chord in every soldier's breast.
The Captain broke the silence, his words falling on them almost like a blow.
"No living man could come out of that fall alive," he continued. "It is a sheer drop of more than two hundred feet to the bottom of the gulch, and there isn't a ghost of a show for anything human or inhuman that goes over it.
"Lieutenant, take a squad of men and ride north until you strike the entrance to the gorge. The water is low at this time of the year and you can easily get up to the point where the bandit and the pinto struck. This time there won't be any question about it. He won't look very pretty, but we've got to get him to the fort as soon as possible, for the weather is warm."