And thus in a few minutes two villains—one a robber and the other a renegade—both from the fastnesses of the Black Hills—had planned and plotted a dark and perhaps bloody crime.
Five days later and Duval Dungarvon was again pacing the depot-platform. He was alone, but, from the impatient look upon his face and the occasional glance up the street, it was evident that he was expecting some one.
Presently his face brightened as he saw a carriage, drawn by four horses, rolling down toward the depot, and as it drove up alongside the platform he walked to the opposite side and mingled with some men collected there, but all the while kept a close watch upon the carriage.
When the vehicle stopped, a tall, noble, gray-haired man of some fifty years stepped out and assisted a young and beautiful girl to the platform. These were followed by four young men dressed in sportsmen’s garbs, each carrying a new Spencer rifle and a game-bag.
The elderly gentleman was Colonel Wayland Sanford, and the young girl his daughter Silvia. They were just about to start on a visit to friends in San Francisco. Two of the young men, Willis and Frank Armond, were the colonel’s nephews and men of means and leisure. The other two, Walter Lyman, attorney, and Ralph Rodman, physician and surgeon, were Willis’ and Frank’s intimate friends, who, like themselves, did not have to depend entirely upon their profession for a livelihood; so the four young gentlemen had concluded to accompany the colonel and daughter as far as the mountains, where they could spend the summer in hunting as recreation from the dust and heat of city life.
As soon as Duval Dungarvon saw the party enter the cars that stood awaiting their load of human freight, he turned and entered the telegraph office, and taking up a blank seated himself at a desk and wrote the following message, which he at once dispatched:
“Omaha, June 15th, 1869.
“William Bates, Esqr., Julesburg, W. T.—Sanford and daughter leave on morning train for San Francisco.
“Clifton Payson.”
Paying for the dispatch, the robber-captain went out upon the platform. The cars were just rolling away, and from one of the windows he beheld the eyes of Colonel Sanford fixed upon him like one in a trance; but in an instant the train was gone, and, turning on his heel, he strode away, muttering to himself: